National team players call for ‘fundamental change’ ahead of Canada Soccer vote

Days before Canada Soccer officials meet to vote on new leadership, members of Canada’s senior national soccer teams sent a letter to provincial soccer federation presidents criticizing the governing body’s current executive and calling for “fundamental change.”

“For far too long, our calls for change have been met with inaction,” the women’s and men’s national soccer teams players’ associations wrote in a letter sent Tuesday morning that was obtained by TSN. 

“For far too long, we have been engaging with leadership that has not been prepared to make the changes that are needed, for the benefit of the current and future players and staff and the future of soccer in Canada. We have grown increasingly concerned that the Canada Soccer decision makers have not acted in the best interests of the sport of soccer in Canada.”

The players wrote that more than a third of Canada Soccer’s current board has been in place since 2018.

“During this five-year period, decisions have been made by Canada Soccer that have not only negatively impacted the national team programs but inhibited the growth potential of soccer in Canada… we call on you, as the presidents of the provincial soccer federations, to use your votes at the annual meeting to elect new voices to Canada Soccer’s leadership. From president to board members to key executive employees, we need new voices to drive fundamental change in the organization.”

Canada Soccer’s members are scheduled to vote on the organization’s next president on Saturday during its annual meeting of members in Saint John, N.B.

Charmaine Crooks, a former Olympic athlete and Canada Soccer board member since 2013 who is now Canada Soccer’s interim president, is running against Rob Newman, a Canada Soccer board member from 2002-12 who is now president of Sport B.C. Newman also ran for Canada Soccer president in 2012 against Victor Montagliani, who was president of Canada Soccer from 2012-17, and lost.

The structure for this weekend’s presidential vote is complicated.

According to Canada Soccer’s bylaws, there are 85 votes in play for the election and a president is elected by majority vote.

The provincial federations in Ontario and Quebec, the largest provinces by participation levels, each have 10 votes, followed by Alberta and B.C., with eight apiece. Each of the senior national teams has a vote, as do referees and coaches.

Canada’s leagues and pro teams have a collective 21 votes and that’s where this election will get interesting.

While Canada’s three Major League Soccer teams each have two votes, the Canadian Premier League (CPL) and its eight teams have 15 thanks to a recent bylaw change. That may be enough, as things now stand, to put the CPL in a position to swing the election.

Canada Soccer is also scheduled to decide during the annual meetings whether to sanction a new domestic women’s pro league started by former national team player Diana Matheson. A decision on that league, now known as Project 8, is scheduled to come before the presidential election, according to a copy of the weekend agenda obtained by TSN.

If Project 8 is approved, it’s unclear whether the votes awarded to the CPL and its teams would be split equally with the new women’s league, with each potentially ending up with 7.5 votes.

If that happened, Matheson’s league could help determine the future of Canada Soccer’s leadership. Matheson declined to comment.

Soccer New Brunswick president Kevin Topolniski said the subject of Project 8’s approval and prospective votes are already generating debate.

“That’s a big question and one I expect will receive lots of debate this weekend,” said Topolniski, who is also chair of the Presidents’ Forum, a group of provincial soccer association presidents.

The national team players’ letter comes following a year of turmoil that has seen both senior national teams at odds with Canada Soccer, calls for the organization’s controversial media and sponsorship deal to be torn up, and condemnation from members of parliament for how Canada Soccer in 2008 allowed a former junior national team coach to continue working with teenagers following allegations of sexual misconduct.

In June 2022, the men’s team refused to play in a game in Vancouver against Panama thanks to a dispute over how to split a $10-million World Cup qualification bonus – an issue that has still not been settled. 

A month later, London, Ont., lawyer Richard McLaren released a report criticizing Canada Soccer for its response in 2008 to sexual abuse allegations raised against Bob Birarda, who was then the coach of Canada’s U-20 women’s national team. Canada Soccer at the time issued a press release announcing Birarda was moving on from his role and thanking him for his service.

Birarda, who went on to coach girls’ teams in B.C. for the following decade, is now in jail as a convicted sex offender. 

This February, the women’s national team went on strike for a day at a tournament in the U.S. after learning that its budget, in a World Cup year, was being cut drastically and that there wouldn’t be enough funding for proper medical care for players or for junior national team training camps.

The women’s team players said they returned to the field begrudgingly after being threatened with lawsuits by Canada Soccer.

Two weeks after president Nick Bontis’ resignation on Feb. 27, Christine Sinclair testified alongside three other women’s national team players before the federal Heritage Committee in Ottawa.

“We don’t trust Canada Soccer,” Sinclair said, adding that the organization “has a culture of silence and obstruction.”

General secretary Earl Cochrane announced April 20 that he, too, would resign, effective following this weekend’s meeting.

On Tuesday, federal sport minister Pascale St-Onge said the government is considering a financial audit of Canada Soccer.

“There’s been no leadership at Canada Soccer, it’s been shameful,” said Amy Walsh, a former women’s national team player who now co-hosts a podcast about soccer called Footy Prime. “The people at the top of Canada Soccer have not just let the national teams down, they’ve let the Canadian population down… Between the fiscal irregularities, the lack of transparency, and Canada Soccer’s leadership not answering to anyone and not dealing with issues of abuse… I think they’ve failed miserably.”

Both Crooks and Newman have been campaigning in recent days and on Apr. 27, they participated in a 40-minute Zoom call with voters in which both were given five minutes to explain their platform before a 30-minute question and answer period.

According to a person who was on the call, Newman discussed further investing in a foundation to help fundraise for Canada Soccer, while Crooks talked about repairing the organization’s relationship with its national teams and building bridges with provincial federations. 

Both addressed Canada Soccer’s controversial contract with Canadian Soccer Business (CSB). The deal, signed by former Canada Soccer president Steve Reed, sees CSB pay a guaranteed fee annually between 2019 and 2027 in exchange for the rights to sell both broadcasting and corporate sponsorship rights to the men’s and women’s national teams.

“The main difference between Charmaine and Rob’s presentations was Rob came right after that CSB agreement, saying it has to be ripped up and renegotiated,” said the person who was on the call. 

“There are people who just want change after all the problems they have seen within Canada Soccer’s leadership and they don’t care who it is that replaces the incumbents. They hear Charmaine talk about building bridges and wonder why she kept so quiet when the CSB deal was signed and more recently when the women’s national team funding was cut so badly. But there’s another group that says, ‘Yes, there are problems with the CSB deal, but that was something that Steve Reed signed and while we have to clean things up, we don’t want to risk chaos by bringing in outsiders like Rob.’”

Topolniski said that Crooks and Newman are scheduled to take additional questions from members during a candidates’ forum before the elections take place on Saturday morning.

“I think some people may still have questions about the CSB deal,” Topolniski said. “Not being at the Canada Soccer board table, most people wouldn’t know about these things.”

Topolniski, who said he’s still never obtained a copy of the Canada Soccer-CSB contract, said he’s had conversations in recent days with others in the soccer community about recent witness testimony before the federal Heritage Committee. 

Reed, for instance, confirmed to the committee on Apr. 27 that the CSB deal was not properly co-signed by then-secretary general Peter Montopoli, as Canada Soccer’s bylaws require. Reed called it “an inadvertent error.”

“I don’t know how that can possibly happen,” Topolniski said. “We also have heard there were conditions put on that contract, like that Canada Soccer was supposed to have a board seat on CSB. And then there were meeting minutes that were lost that magically appeared saying the deal was approved. It doesn’t sound like that contract was ever properly approved.”

Lobbying over director positions and the federation presidency in recent days has attracted the attention of Montagliani, who is now the president of Concacaf, the soccer confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean.

A source who is in a position to influence their organization’s vote this weekend said Montagliani contacted them recently to say that voters need to support Crooks’ candidacy in order for Canada Soccer to avoid negative fallout. 

Montagliani declined to comment through a Concacaf spokesperson.