It's time: The CSA's leadership must step down

There's no way forward with the current leadership in place

It’s been quite the week in Canadian soccer. Just when we thought the Saskatchewan mess was as low as things would get, the CanWNT came out with this statement at about 5pm ET.

That’s a lot to digest, but the brass tax is this: the women are accusing the CSA of gender inequality in funding and say that they are not able to prepare for the World Cup, based on a lack of adequate support from the federation.

The numbers at the top of the article, which were posted to Twitter by Allysha Chapman, certainly show a discrepancy. The men got $11m in funding in 2021, with the women getting $5m.

It’s important to underline that was a World Cup qualifying year for the men. I have reported in the past that the CSA uses a four year cycle to calculate equal funding. So, the women’s team would receive more funding than the men for the year prior to a World Cup and the World Cup year. The goal is to provide equal funding over the four years, rather than in each calendar year.

Under that strategy — which is a sensible approach, it should be noted — the women’s up years should have been 2018 and 2019, with the men getting more in 2020 and 2021.

So, we need to see the 2018 and 2019 numbers to truly gage whether the CSA has fulfilled its obligation to equal funding.

I don’t point this out to defend the CSA, but rather to paint the fullest picture possible. The problem is that you’re going to have to trust my reporting here because I only know this from years of working sources. It’s not public knowledge. It’s not even widely understood by the players. That’s because there is zero transparency when it comes to the CSA’s finances.

That is — and always has been — a problem. Without transparency there is no trust between the federation and the players. Without that it’s hard to move forward and work together to address the lack of finances that go into the program as a whole.

Make no mistake, there isn’t enough money going into the programs (I mean, $11m is diddly squat to prepare for a men’s World Cup too). Part of the reason they agreed to the much maligned Canadian Soccer Business deal is to have guaranteed income. They just didn’t bet on the men catching fire and qualifying for the World Cup, thus making that deal look horrible.

Beyond looking horrible, it’s also put them under considerable financial strain now. They had to give more money to the men last year than they anticipated so that they could prepare for a World Cup. That, in turn, is putting the crunch on now. Most countries would have the World Cup prize money to help cover those extra costs, but, well…

That money is gone. According to a source who is in the position to know, it was all promised to the men to resolve the dispute they had with them. An individual who is in position to know reached out to confirm that the players have not yet received the payment. Another source said that was due to the fact that FIFA had not given the CSA the money yet. Regardless, CSB doesn’t have it, as it was originally thought.

So, I don’t think they are withholding money from the women’s program out of misogyny here. No, they legitimately don’t have enough money because of the reasons outlined above. Understanding that doesn’t make this any better, but it’s probably necessary information when looking for a solution to the problem.

What is that solution? It starts with the current CSA leadership understanding that they need to do what’s best for the health of the sport. It’s increasingly clear that there is no way forward with those there now. They’ve lost the trust of everyone in the game. They need to do what’s right and step dowm. In doing so, they also need to open the books up so that an independent body candetermine what money is there, how much money has been spent and whether the principles of gender equality have been met.

If those principles have not been met then that needs to be fixed. Immediately.

After that process is done, new leadership can be brought in. Although it might be worth considering whether creating an entirely new structure to govern the national teams separately from the grassroots might be worth exploring. Regardless, it badly needs to be professionalized.

In the meantime, the women need to be given the resources to properly prepare for the World Cup. I don’t care if they have to crowdsource it, just get them the money.

A really smart move by CSB right now would be to voluntarily give some money to the women’s program to cover the shortfall.

This story isn’t going away, but we will leave it there for tonight. I’ll have more on CSB this weekend and how the fundamental **** up here was its failure to realize that creating a women’s CanPL wasn’t a nice-to-have, but rather a must-have.

Happy Friday!