Canada Soccer awaits response after 'best and final' compensation offer to men's, women's teams

Canada Soccer's general secretary said Tuesday the organization has presented a "best and final" offer of compensation to its men's and women's national teams and is awaiting their respective responses.

The offer comes as the women's team is en route to Australia in preparation for the FIFA Women's World Cup, which begins July 20. 

"What we've tried to do to the best of our abilities, and I believe we have done this, is to bring equity in compensation," Jason deVos said. "But I think for me the most important piece is that we have equalized the standard of care across both programs.

"We have equalized the opportunity for them to be active in every window and to be able to give them the competition that they need, the training that they need to reach their highest level of performance and that the same environment across both programs."

Team captain Christine Sinclair said this week the team wanted a deal before the World Cup.

"We knew this was going to be a fight. We knew it was going to take some time," Sinclair told The Canadian Press. "But us as a women's team have flat out told the CSA that we need a deal in place for at least the World Cup and this year before we head down there. So obviously we're getting close. I think it will happen. Will it be a long-term deal? No. But something will be done before the World Cup starts."

DeVos said Canada Soccer's offer also includes what he called an equitable standard of care for both the women's and men's programs around travel, hotels, training grounds to staff.

"That experience will be at the highest level possible and it will be consistent across both programs," he said. 

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This comes in the wake of another turbulent week at Canada Soccer headquarters, including a report that suggested the national sport organization was considering bankruptcy. But deVos was unequivocal in saying while finances are an issue, bankruptcy is not being considered.

"Canada Soccer is not contemplating bankruptcy and is not discussing bankruptcy internally as a strategy or as an outcome," he told CBC Sports just hours before Canada's men's team played Guadeloupe Tuesday in Toronto to begin the Gold Cup.

"It is frustrating. We want to focus on what really matters and that is the performance on the field of our national team athletes and also on creating environments for kids to fall in love with the game."

DeVos took over as interim general secretary in April at the height of turmoil within the national sport organization. It's been a year of issues facing Canada Soccer, including the men's national team boycotting a friendly in Vancouver against Panama over labour talks ahead of its World Cup in Qatar in November.

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The women's national team also threatened a boycott at February's SheBelieves Cup over pay equity and resource issues, but returned after Canada Soccer threatened legal action.

"We're in a challenging financial position," deVos said. "We obviously had a fairly significant deficit last year and will have another deficit this year but we're taking active steps to address that to get back to a balanced position."

What was supposed to be a time of celebration over unparalleled success in the program's history, including an Olympic gold medal won by the women's team in Tokyo and the men's program qualifying for the World Cup for the first time in 36 years, has instead become contentious between the teams and organization.

"We're having a difficult time right now but we'll get through this," deVos, who is a former men's national team captain and was Canada Soccer's director of development for six years.

"We're going to come through this and we're going to come out on the other end more resilient, more connected, more grounded and all working together towards the betterment of the game in this country."

Earlier this week, men's national team head coach John Herdman said the time is now to get the financial issues figured out. 

"Coming off a World Cup, I think [everyone] expected that it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows, there was going to be finances to take the team to the next level and it's not," Herdman told reporters. "These players have earned that right. The staff have earned that right. We shouldn't be going backwards after a World Cup, but we do understand that the expectations have gone up in this country."

The challenge for deVos is trying to balance equity across the national team programs all while trying to fund programs at the grassroots level across the country. 

"It's about creating a legacy and taking this game somewhere it's never been before and I feel like we have this opportunity that's right on our fingertips," he said. "Our women are gold medallists from the Olympics, they're going into the World Cup.

"We want to be talking about that and inspiring the next generation of young soccer players, boys and girls across the country."

Soccer North is back with a focus on the Canadian women's team as it prepares for the FIFA Women's World Cup. Join host Andi Petrillo and special guests each Friday for insight and analysis leading into the tournament.