Canada Soccer and its men’s national team are raging over compensation and transparency issues. More importantly, the litigation raises countless questions about the governance of the Canadian organization.
From the third paragraph of the letter from the players published on Sunday, in which they announced that they refused to participate in their friendly match against Panama, the crux of the problem – whether really one of the issues raised is more important than the other yet – appears: players write existence learned recently that in 2018, Canada Soccer signed an agreement with Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) that threatened the association’s ability to use the success of its national teams on the pitch..
(A side note here: did players find out about the existence of the agreement, which was announced in 2018, or did they just experience the full range of its effects?)
CSB, a company started by Canadian Premier League team owners, signed a 10-year deal with Canada Soccer in 2018. It has been CSB, since then, that has specifically addressed all commercial partnerships and broadcasting rights for women’s and men’s national team programs. The company said it invested tens of millions of dollars in Canadian soccer.
The terms of the agreement are not public, and that is exactly what the players regret. How is the deal arranged? How is the money distributed?
Questions about Canada Soccer’s internal governance are not new. The reactions of some former Canadian national team stars speak volumes. Goalkeeper Craig Forrest, on Twitter, wrote on Friday if the Canadian organization is transparent, professional and trustworthy, we are not here and that we would have reconciled before the first qualifying game.
Kaylyn Kyle, Olympic medalist in 2012, thanked the men’s team for defending a position that has propelled us for many years and that is it coach’s work at player mentality who led the men’s program at the World Cup and the women’s program at Olympic gold.
The former international player may recall this statement from Canada Soccer published at the end of 2021, when the Olympic champions won the team of the year award from Postmedia and The Canadian Press. It has been read that the women’s team’s three Olympic podiums are the result of the national organization’s continued investment in women’s soccer and that the gold medal was described the strategic initiative in the strategic plan of the association.
Why, then, do we even need to talk about setting up a professional women’s championship in Canada, while those in European countries are growing at lightning speed? The players also included this request in their letter, as well as an equal pay structure for men and women – the American federation, which has made public all its agreement data to its national teams, can be used to for example in this matter.
(The women’s team also reacted by stating that it does not take into account the equal percentage of scholarships paid for by FIFA, located in the two stratospheres depending on whether one is a player or a player, as a form of equal pay. The players discussed about the percentage in their letter. But the players feel that negotiations are progressing, which is a rare good sign in all this turmoil.)
The question that accompanies many of these questions is the following: why didn’t we take care of X or Y before coming to this point? Canada Soccer gives the impression as an organization that doesn’t see the blows coming and is overwhelmed by events when an uppercut hits its chin.
In September 2021, Radio-Canada and CBC painted a picture of a derivatives market in which Canada is only extra. The Canadians just won Olympic gold. The association has thus not necessarily deprived itself of revenue, shedding an unfavorable light on the almost captivating tone of Canada Soccer president Nick Bontis, when he explained at a press conference on Sunday the economic reasons why the proposals of the players are impossible to achieve in his eyes.
The few thousand shirts sold didn’t sink Canada Soccer into a hard cash overnight. But this story reminds us why so many alumni doubt organizational management skills.
The players are set to return to competition on Thursday in Vancouver for a CONCACAF Nations League game against Curacao. The World Cup in Qatar isn’t open in the morning, but it seems to be. It is in everyone’s interest to sit down and find, in the absence of a common basis, some way that will make it possible to achieve this.
Source: Radio-Canada
