Canada Soccer gambles and loses

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/02/2023 (1206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Call it another bet gone wrong.

Earlier this week, as Canada’s national women’s soccer team assembled in Florida for the annual SheBelieves Cup, the gang that purports to oversee the sport in this country gambled no one was paying attention.

Once again, they were made to look ridiculous. (Never mind the troubling assumption that non-male athletes will simply fly under the radar.) Not only was the wager ill-advised, but they completely underestimated the stakes.

If it seems like we’ve been here before, it’s because we have. And recently.

Last June, when they realized how little of Canada Soccer’s financial dealings were actually above board, the World Cup-bound men’s squad refused to play a friendly against Panama — a move that jolted a growing fanbase and drew a bizarre, contorted tantrum from syndicate boss Nick Bontis.

The players, in asking such galling questions as, “Where is the money we know exists — some of which we’re entitled to — but that nobody can seem to find?” had kicked open a can of worms whose creepy-crawly denizens of the dark had been tunnelling from Canada Soccer to a shady ring known as Canadian Soccer Business.

Eight months on, most people who follow the sport in this country — and they have to be literate in so much more than just “the game” to do so — know CSB as the mob who bought up most of Canada Soccer’s revenue streams and sold a bunch of them to repeatedly-refinanced Mediapro, whose current majority owner is a Chinese private equity firm.

In essence, they played bookie for a governing body willing to gamble against its men’s side qualifying for the 2022 World Cup.

Which is why, when both senior national teams keep asking about money, they know they won’t get a straight answer — because there isn’t one, at least not an ethical one, perhaps not even a legal one. And it’s infuriating, as veteran women’s internationals Christine Sinclair, Janine Beckie, Sophie Schmidt and Quinn, who have to fight for equal treatment on top of everything else, expressed yet again these past few days.

“As a team we are just at our wit’s end,” remarked Sinclair, the long-time team captain, in a virtual press conference during the week. “This could be our most important fight that we ever have as national team players.”

And these national team players, don’t forget, are not only among the favourites going into the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand but also the reigning Olympic champions. That their primary squabble is inevitably with Canada Soccer is disgraceful, but when the national soccer association is literally an opponent — and one that has threatened their livelihoods with legal action — Sinclair’s words are not an exaggeration.

As a bit of an aside, it’s been tempting since the gold medal and her breaking of the all-time goalscoring record to perhaps want to nudge Sinclair, who’ll be 40 when the World Cup begins, into retirement. There is, after all, the future to think about. Having said that, or thought it, thank goodness she’s not going anywhere, because she’s exactly the leader her teammates, the women’s program and the sport in Canada generally needs for the battle against Bontis, his faithful lapdog Earl Cochrane and an administration whose very purpose is to syphon, supress and mislead.

For example, with the team prepared to sit out the SheBelieves Cup, Canada Soccer shifted the burden of blame onto the players, claiming to have presented “an equity-based approach” and were “still waiting for a definitive response.”

BS, responded Sinclair.

“They flat-out just lied in their statement,” she said, per The Canadian Press. “And now the public’s being lied to. That’s how they operate.”

The latest showdown with Bontis and Cochrane was so toxic that Schmidt, a three-time Olympic medalist, wanted to retire on the spot but was “talked off the ledge,” as she put it, by Sinclair. “My views of the CSA (Canadian Soccer Association — the organizational name for Canada Soccer) have never been more concerning,” she added. “I am still rocked to the core by the situations we are currently in.”

Added Beckie, the likely successor to Sinclair’s armband: “It’s pretty disgusting that we’re having to ask just to be treated equally… And it’s something that now, I don’t even get disappointed by anymore, I just get angry about.”

Because of Canada Soccer’s bullying — and earlier this month former midfielder Andrea Neil confirmed to a parliamentary committee that the body loads its contracts with non-disclosure clauses and threats to sue — the team will contest the SheBelieves Cup but is doing so, Sinclair clarifies, under protest.

On Thursday night, they took to the pitch in Orlando wearing purple shirts overtop their jerseys reading “Enough is Enough.” And, despite losing 2-0 to the United States, they gained some unlikely allies in their archrivals’ camp. Notably, American forward Alex Morgan told The New York Times that her teammates would “do anything to publicize what they’re fighting for.” Prior to kick-off, both squads met in the centre circle and formed the shape of a heart in solidarity.

Canada Soccer’s post-match report did not include comments from any player. Hardly surprising, although even their communications department seems to have picked a fight with the very people they’re employed to amplify.

As reported by Neil Davidson of The Canadian Press, Wednesday’s post-training availability with Sinclair, Schmidt, Beckie and Quinn was “forcefully shut down by the team media attaché.”

Did they not think anyone would notice? Canada Soccer’s own data shows nearly a million registered players across all age and gender categories, many of whom regularly follow more than one social media channel. You’d have to be embarrassingly naïve to think you could get away with strong-arming world football’s all-time top goalscorer away from the camera.

That, or corrupted to the core, existing in the sort of alternate reality that gangs require in order to do business.

But theirs is a doomed racket.

Canada Soccer may have got away with wagering against its men’s and women’s programs for quite some time, but when it gambled that the public would either not pay attention or simply not care, it overplayed its hand.

The tables have turned. And while the women’s team, which has carried the sport in this country for decades, has found a new shirt to wear, Canada Soccer has lost theirs.

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