Where’s the money? Canada Soccer needs to answer that question before anything else

If you wanted to sum up soccer in Canada in 2023 you’d ask, where’s the money? The women’s team are the defending Olympic gold medallists, and will compete in the women’s World Cup in five months; the men finally reached a World Cup for the first time since 1986. This women’s World Cup will surely be the last for Christine Sinclair, who has carried the banner for the sport in this country for over two decades. This should be a moment.

And the women’s team are, in their own words, disheartened, angry, shattered. They have not been paid for 2022, and still don’t have a deal on compensation, but also expected equal World Cup preparation to what the men enjoyed last season. What they found upon entering camp in Orlando was Canada Soccer has made deep budget cuts to both programs, and youth programs as well.

So less than a year after the men went on strike the women did too, before Canada Soccer threatened them with lawsuits, forcing them to train under protest. Where’s the money?

“Something has to change,” said Sinclair in a conference call arranged by the players. “We can’t beat around the bush. Something needs to change. With the success of both programs there’s no way that we should be facing the current reality that we’re facing. Something needs to change.”

She’s not wrong. The budget cuts, according to sources familiar with the programs who requested anonymity, are significant: one source claimed cuts to the men’s and women’s programs was close to the entire spending on the women’s program in 2021, which amounted to $5 million. The FIFA payout after the men’s World Cup in Qatar in December was $10.5 million (U.S.), some of which will go to the players are part of the ongoing pay negotiations, and still, we’re here.

So where’s the money? Canada Soccer blew a pile of money scheduling Iran and then Panama in pre-men’s World Cup matches that were cancelled last year, sure. But then and now, the men’s team pointed to the deal Canada Soccer signed in 2018 with Canadian Soccer Business, the group whose owners own the teams in the Canadian Premier League; that 20-year deal signed away the broadcasting and sponsorship money in exchange for a flat payment of between $3 million and 4 million per year.

CSB officials can call themselves misunderstood all they want, but Canada Soccer has a cap on its broadcasting and sponsorship money, and there were plenty of sponsors who signed up last year. It was a measure of the moment that CSB publicly offered to help out the women’s team this week; CSB officials and officials from Canada Soccer were in an extended meeting Tuesday night.

Can they bridge the budget gap, and make these World Cup preparations equal to the men? Doubtful. Beyond the fact that the budget gaps in Canada Soccer sound massive — sources familiar with the program said the reports linking men’s coach John Herdman to the New Zealand job were connected to the budget issues — the men’s team benefited from substantial private fundraising last year.

Still, isn’t preparing your national teams the basic stuff of a federation? Can’t they do more? The Canadian women say they don’t have a home game scheduled before the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in July and August; that full World Cup preparatory windows had been cut, and that the number of players and staff invited to camp had been cut, as had funding for youth programs. On the conference call, the level of frustration was palpable. Veteran Sophie Schmidt said, with some emotion, that she nearly retired earlier in the camp, before Sinclair talked her out of it; the 34-year-old Schmidt will instead retire after the World Cup.

“Those of us that are player reps are exhausted and deflated,” said Sinclair. “As a team, we’re just at our wits’ end. But … this could be our most important fight that we ever have as national team players, and it’s one we’re determined to win.

“To understand that our organization put us in that position, for me, it was shattering,” said midfielder Quinn, who warned youth program cuts would impact the senior team soon enough.

“We understand having seen the men’s team go through (World Cup preparation, what is) doable for our federation,” said forward Janine Beckie. “So we expect nothing less than to be treated the same way and it’s quite it’s pretty disgusting that we’re having to ask just to be treated equally. It’s a fight that women all over the world have to partake in every single day, but quite frankly, we’re really sick of it.

“And it’s something that now I don’t even get disappointed by anymore. I just get angry about, because it’s time. It’s 2023. We won the damn Olympic Games, and we’re about to go to the World Cup with the team who could win.”

Sinclair warned that once the players were in a legal strike position, they would strike; she also said Canada Soccer had not explained the budget cuts to the players. The team sees this as a moment for the program, to truly demand equal treatment. As Beckie pointed out, striking will hinder their preparation for the World Cup, and they know that.

So where’s the money? Where’s the transparency? Canada Soccer keeps the revenue from ticket sales, so why hasn’t a game been scheduled?

Maybe they will, but Canada Soccer keeps lurching from mess to mess. Before the men’s World Cup someone who really knew soccer told me, watch: the flaws of how the game is run in Canada will be put under the microscope.

Now the women’s team feels betrayed, and a private consortium is negotiating what amounts to a form of charity, and Christine Sinclair looks like someone at war with her own country, at the end of her rope. Maybe it can only get better from here. But given that this is Canada Soccer, I wouldn’t take that bet.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur