By: Simran Sarai, Sports Writer
Any young woman who grew up playing sports knows that getting society to take you, your teammates, and your competitors seriously remains an uphill battle.
The plight of women’s soccer in Canada is no stranger to this unforgiving landscape. Despite qualifying for eight of the nine Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women’s World Cup tournaments since 1991, the reigning Olympic champions are once again fighting for equal pay and opportunity. This comes just months ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
So what exactly went down? Here’s a brief overview. In 2020, the Canadian women’s soccer team won Olympic gold for the first time ever. The momentous occasion can be attributed greatly to the successes of longtime Canadian soccer legends like Sophie Schmidt and Christine Sinclair. The latter of whom has 189 international goals — the most in internal competition as of April 2022.
Flash forward to 2022: the Canadian men’s team qualified for their second-ever FIFA World Cup, elevating soccer’s popularity in Canada. However, in June 2022, the men’s team refused to play in an international match, citing a lack of transparency around finances, and asking for increased funding as a result of newly acquired contracts ahead of the 2022 World Cup. The men’s team also asked Canada Soccer to deliver an equal pay contract for both them and the women’s teams.
The women followed up with demands of their own, but the issue would remain at large throughout the remainder of 2022. In early 2023, with five months left before the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the Canadian women’s team announced their intentions to strike, just days ahead of the SheBelieves Cup.
The women’s team was striking because Canada Soccer has cut the national program’s funding for the 2023 year — which happens to be a World Cup year. These funding cuts are affecting the adult and youth programs, and have already resulted in the women’s squad being trimmed from 28 players to 20. Adding to the same financial transparency issues present in 2022, players also shared that they had not received any payment for 2022 from Canada Soccer, in a letter released on February 10, 2023.
On the same day, the men’s national team also released a letter of support, standing in solidarity with the women’s team and calling for intervention from the federal government should Canada Soccer fail to negotiate fair agreements. Canada Soccer responded to the women’s letter saying that they would consider legal action should the team decide to not play in the SheBelieves Cu. While this forced players to return to practice, they did so with their logos covered and jerseys turned inside out.
On February 16, the Canadian Soccer Players’ Association told Canada Soccer to take down a previous statement of theirs on Twitter. The post in question referred to confidential details about the “retroactive pay agreement” between Canada Soccer and the Canadian women’s team. Both parties agreed to not disclose this information publicly without the permission of the other. The coming days and weeks will bring further information on what options players have to fight for fair compensation, but until then, the public has been weighing in on the issue.
If the national soccer program’s fight for equal treatment didn’t say enough about the culture surrounding women’s sports in Canada, then the comments left on some of the stories covering the ordeal certainly do. Comment sections were ripe with misogyny and a lack of knowledge. Some commentators minimized the accomplishments of the women’s program. While others argued that the women’s team needed to see the same popularity as the men’s before being compensated.
We might think we can solve the undervaluing of women’s athletic accomplishments by ensuring young girls are put in the same sports as boys. But those actions lose their meaning when our children grow up and find the systems they play within are perpetuating a culture of inequitable treatment.
