The Canadian women’s football team have announced that they will halt their strike action against Canada Soccer and return to training before Friday’s SheBelieves Cup fixture against the United States amid concerns that players “cannot afford the risks that personal action against us by Canada Soccer will create”.
The decision from the Canada squad, announced in a statement posted to Twitter, arrives just three days after players announced strike action levied against Canada Soccer over pay equity concerns and significant cuts to its national program for 2023.
Players criticised the governing body for failing to “adequately fund the Women’s National Team” five months before the squad embark on the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, amid a number of damning accusations of inequity.
Yet Sunday evening brought a new twist in the legal saga as the national team took to Twitter once more to announce their annulment of the strike action due to concerns over the potentially devastating financial and personal risks posed for players “who have received no compensation yet for any of our work for Canada Soccer in 2022”.
According to the statement, Canada Soccer does not recognise the team’s strike as lawful and the threat of “millions of dollars in damages” that the team would accrue from the governing body in consequence was too great.
The national team stood firmly by their prior critiques of the governing body's budget cuts and implored Canada Soccer "to do more to support our programs and our players".
The statement reads from the Canadian Women’s National Team reads in full:
“Yesterday, our Players’ Association announced that we were taking action in response to Canada Soccer’s significant cuts to our national team programs less than six months in advance of the World Cup.
“Representatives of the Players’ Association met with Canada Soccer this afternoon for an hours-long meeting in which the concerns of the players were discussed in detail.
“Prior to the meeting, Canada Soccer told us that they consider our job action to be an unlawful strike. They told us that if we did not return to work – and did not commit today to playing in Thursday’s game against the United States – they would not only take legal action to force us back to the pitch but wouldn’t consider taking steps to collect what could be millions of dollars in damages from our Players’ Association and from each of the individual players currently in camp.
“As individual players who have received no compensation yet for any of our work for Canada Soccer in 2022, we cannot afford the risks that personal action against us by Canada Soccer will create. Because of this, we have advised Canada Soccer that we will return to training tomorrow and will play in the SheBelieves Cup as scheduled.
“We continue to believe that Canada Soccer’s cuts to the national team programs – especially right before our World Cup – are unacceptable. We continue to believe that Canada Soccer needs to do more to support our programs and our players. And we continue to believe that unless we stand up together and demand more, nothing will ever change.”
Canada are sixth in the world rankings having won gold at the Olympics in 2021. They are due to face the United States in the SheBelieves Cup. The tournament was established on the heels of the US Women's 2015 run to the World Cup, with the movement meant to "encourage young women to achieve their dreams" and is dedicated to "women's empowerment".
