The Canadian men's national team may be forced NOT to play during the international windows due to a crippling financial situation that could ultimately lead to bankruptcy.
Interim general secretary and former Dundee United defender Jason de Vos, has painted a grim picture for the likes of Celtic's Alistair Johnston and co that could see top stars being unable to represent their country. Canada were part of the Qatar 2022 World Cup but de Vos says Canada Soccer's financial situation is becoming a 'real struggle' and that the option of bankruptcy has already been discussed.
The men's side are due to compete in the Gold Cup next week, while the women's team are part of the summer World Cup. But both teams may have to withdraw from upcoming games, including international windows throughout the remainder of the year. It's believed the federation 'burned through' more than $4 million last year with an independent review underway due to a “lack of financial transparency.”
Former Canada international deVos admits the revenue simply isn't there but that filing for bankruptcy would be considered as a last resort. In an interview with TSN, deVos said: “We are in a real struggle. It’s not imminent, but we need to explore what bankruptcy entails and how it might affect our organisation. We don’t have enough revenue coming in for the programs that need to be run, and that includes everything from grassroots coach education and referee development to youth national teams and our senior men’s and women’s teams.
“…[bankruptcy] has been discussed, but not in the sense of this is a strategy or this is something that we're looking at. It's been discussed more from my own perspective to learn about it. It is absolutely the last option that I want to consider or even think about. But I would be remiss if I didn't do my due diligence on this.”
Canada Soccer has been in negotiations to sign new collective bargaining agreements with both senior national teams, as deVos shared his sympathy for the impact on the players.
He added: “I still think of myself as a player, and I want the national teams to know that I’m on their side. I need for them to understand we only have so much money and there’s only so much we can give them. I don’t want to have to take money from programming resources to provide more compensation. I know the players understand that, but they also want what they feel they deserve.”
The impact of the financial squeeze led to players who featured in a 2-0 defeat to the USA on June 19 travelling in economy class on an Air Canada Rouge flight to Toronto after the game. In terms of them flying business class, it's transatlantic flights only,” deVos said. “We would love to be able to fly all of our players in business class on every flight, but we don't have the resources to do that. It’s not that we're saying, ‘You don't deserve it, or you don't need it.’ We can't afford it.”
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