The prognosis isn’t exactly of doomsday calibre, but for those within Canadian women’s football, it might as well be. In a decade, Canada – a two-time Olympic bronze medalist, a gold medalist at the most recent Tokyo games, a team ranked sixth in the world according to FIFA and the 2015 Women’s World Cup host – will be irretrievably left behind on the women's football world stage.
The claim, from former Canadian national team midfielder Kaylyn Kyle, is heady, if not disquieting. Less than 100 days stand between the MLS commentator's prophecy and this summer’s Women’s World Cup, a competition in which the Canada national team always promises to be a strong contender but never quite manages to wriggle into the final stages.
And after a tumultuous few months involving strike action, legal threats, protests and intense negotiations following governing body Canada Soccer Association’s (CSA) decision to cut national team programmes and funding five months out from the showpiece event, Kyle does not see Canada’s fate shifting. In fact, the nation’s decade of admirable success on the international stage risks timing out altogether.
“There are so many good teams now because of the investment going in behind it and I think that’s where Canada, you will see in the next ten years, we will be left behind,” Kyle tells the Mirror while discussing her place in this year's World XI team at Soccer Aid. “It will be very difficult for us to even podium at an Olympic Games.”
The World Cup will be the second major tournament Kyle will miss since retirement, but she’s preparing for her own footballing showpiece event in this year’s Soccer Aid. In playing for the World XI, Kyle’s thrill is contagious, particularly at the prospect of playing with Tommy Fury.
"I’m really looking forward to it. He was a great addition as well, so let’s just hope he can run as well as he can box."
Despite her football background, Kyle refuses to rest on any former player's laurels.
“You would think that most former footballers would go in there and wing it, but I’ve had two kids since I stopped playing and your touch goes so quick," she explains. "I’ve been running but I need to get my touch back, so I’m going to try to find a local five-a-side team and join for a couple of weeks so I don’t embarrass myself and our family name.”
The past few months have been gruelling for Canada women’s football. While CSA put forth an interim agreement for funding in March to momentarily settle the waters – including equal match payments and sharing of competition prize money –, the future of women’s football in Canada remains precariously poised in the months leading up to New Zealand and Australia.
The reality sits in stark contrast to that of the Canada men’s national team, who in preparation for their first-ever World Cup appearance in 36 years last November relished unprecedented resources and support, including spare roster spots, additional trainers and physios, first-class and private travel expenses, auxiliary training matches and preparations.
Kyle does not begrudge the men’s team, who despite not escaping the group stages put in stirring and commendable performances reflective of Canada’s football passion. “This isn’t a gender thing,” the 34-year-old says. “I respect the males and what they have done for Canada Soccer and globally.”
Yet, as the resources augmented, those within Canada’s women’s football milieu looked on bemused and ultimately exasperated. Despite a decade of unrivalled success, the women’s team had never been afforded such support.
In the lead-up to their own World Cup months after the men’s tournament, similar resources would not only fail to be afforded to them but budgets and programmes would face huge cuts too - a step too far.
Kyle considers this the proverbial final straw, but she’s careful to point out the episode was not a sudden firebomb, nor were the threats of striking simply about equal pay, a concept that has come to be viewed as a blanket term for the many grievances in women’s football and the standard for achieving gender parity.
For Kyle, the notion is reductive. Equal pay is salient, but it’s tempting to tick the box next to each country’s name that has provided equal pay for their respective women’s teams and consider the case of parity sufficiently closed. But equality is not nearly as narrow and easily achieved as Twitter headlines would insinuate.
“It’s so much bigger than money, and the surface-level narrative that Canada Soccer was trying to sell,” Kyle says. “They’re about two years behind the eight ball [in regards to equal pay] compared to other federations, but that’s actually not the bigger issue here.
Kyle recalls going away with a team of 19 supported by only one physiotherapist, or not having enough roster spots to field a 11v11 drill in training and calling on then-boyfriends visiting on time off to fill in the gaps. Travel conditions were subpar, and kit and equipment often came second-hand. They are stories that skim the surface of reality for female footballers, but they are hyper-familiar to many, if not most, footballers of Kyle’s generation.
“I get where people are coming from when they make the point that prize money is different with FIFA and at the World Cup. I don’t disagree with that. Jersey sales are different, stadium sales are different, prize money is different," Kyle says.
“But it’s not about that. It’s about actual equality, treating both the male and female teams equally and giving them the respect they deserve."
Achieving this version of equality is more complex and exacting than declaring equal pay. There are tangible requirements: a total overhaul of the CSA top brass and the inclusion of former players with appropriate qualifications into positions of power. Creating a fruitful women’s domestic league is also imperative, which former players Diana Matheson and Stephanie Labbé - now general manager of women's football at Vancouver Whitecaps FC - amongst others are working tirelessly on, but investors are needed.
Then there are the intangibles: honesty and transparency.
The demands aren’t outrageous, and already steps have been taken. The women's national team won a significant battle in the resignation of CSA president Nick Bontis shortly after their strike threats.
Still, Kyle maintains that the 53-year-old’s exit is no zenith, going on to describe Canada Soccer as an “old boys’ club” mired in a self-perpetuating culture of nepotism and historical relationships.
“They’re putting new people in but nothing is changing because it’s still that old guard mentality,” Kyle explains.
Until a wholesale culture shift occurs, analogous change remains unlikely, but Kyle is hopeful. Around the world more federations and leagues are facing exceptional reckonings from their women’s players.
This year, the French Football Federation underwent a significant gutting of top personnel, with president Noel Le Graet resigning amid allegations of systemic misogyny and sexual harassment, along with the subsequent suspension of FFF director Florence Hardouin. Days later, women’s head coach Corrine Diacre was sacked after key players in the national team, including legend and captain Wendie Renard, announced a boycott of national duties due to an ostensible, unrectifiable divide between the squad and manager.
Last September in Spain, a 15-player mutiny erupted in a final bid to remove manager Jorge Vildas, after president of the national federation, Luis Rubiales, refused to take action despite earlier pleas from the squad. It came after Spain announced a five-year agreement granting equal pay and travel conditions for male and female players on its national teams.
Germany's national women's team continues to fight for equal pay and treatment as they compete at the acme of women's football.
And of course in the USA, after the USWNT's more than six-year saga over equal pay finally reached a landmark settlement in 2022, the National Women’s Soccer League was handed a damning year-long investigation revealing the league’s systemic abuse and “widespread misconduct”, consequently banning four women’s coaches for life.
The events, while technically in isolation, are no coincidence. And while troubling in their details, Kyle believes they represent positive steps towards change. As more teams stand up against inadequate treatment, the blueprints will be emulated.
“We have to give a lot of credit to the other federations,” Kyle says. “The American national team. They were the ones who spearheaded this. Because we would have never been able to take a stand without other federations taking it first if I’m being completely honest. We weren’t waiting for them per se, but once they did – a team like the USA who have won multiple World Cups, Olympic Games – then Spain and France, it helps.”
A difference persists in that Canada do not have the backing of powerful and profitable domestic leagues, male or female. Canada is currently the only women’s team in the top 10 FIFA rankings without a women’s domestic league, though work is being done to rectify this. Without this, Kyle warns the chance to foster talent and improve standards is lost, allowing the national team to be usurped by countries who choose to invest.
“That’s wild,” Kyle says, her incredulity palpable. “I try to tell people this and try to make it make sense and find myself getting in a rage.”
Kyle admits her tendency for rage with a gregarious smile, but painting women as rageful caricatures is a tactic often used to dismiss female footballers speaking out against perceived injustices. Kyle recalls how Bontis dubbed her former teammate Christine Sinclair’s criticisms of the federation as “bitching”. USWNT star Megan Rapinoe has been painted in a similarly hostile glare. Kyle acknowledges that her unreserved remarks could see her brandished with the title.
“I don’t think that the 'angry woman' narrative has changed, which is really sad considering everything they’ve done not only on the female side but on the men’s side and for the federations as well,” Kyle says.
“I think a lot of people forget that they’re not doing this for them, they’re doing this for the future generations of female footballers in Canada which I think is so selfless.”
The sentiment directly contradicts the image of disgruntled avarice conflated with protesting female footballers. Even so, history shows more women’s teams are abandoning the old methods of negotiating quietly or away from the public eye.
Kyle owes this to a plethora of reasons, but mostly the growth of the women’s game and player status. No longer are footballers worried of stymying the enthusiasm around women’s football by antagonising potential fans or investors with requests for more resources and backing.
“I think it was finally a time when Christine Sinclair and a lot of other national women’s athletes who are finally making money playing, have those sponsorship dollars behind them, are finally able to be like I would rather boycott than represent a federation that doesn’t see what’s best for not only our women’s team but our men’s team, and the fans that have truly fallen in love with the game,” Kyle explains.
It’s a paradigm shift, and one with potential resonance, but Kyle remains firm. She believes a trick was missed in not capitalising on the momentum garnered after the men’s World Cup and facilitating a home match for Canada Women before the summer.
“It’s frustrating to say the least,” she says, describing the nation as a passionate footballing hotbed, gender regardless.
A positive performance at this summer’s World Cup is desirable in maintaining momentum, though Kyle is prosaic. Preparations have been scuppered, attention distracted.
The number one question Kyle faces is Canada’s success at the Olympics but not at the World Cup. Kyle doesn’t consider it a paradox, instead demarcating a distinct line between the two: the World Cup is more taxing, the competition is harsher and the squads thicker. Canada has not managed to meet the rigour.
Still, against France in their final preparations before the World Cup last week, Canada looked conspicuously less drained physically and emotionally in their 2-1 defeat than in their SheBelieves Cup performances against USA and Brazil. It typified the squad, whom in 2015 Kyle hailed as the best collective spirit of any team in the world.
- Tickets for Soccer Aid For UNICEF on Sunday 11th June 2023 at Old Trafford, are now on sale via www.socceraid.org.uk/tickets with a family of four able to attend for just £60 — two adults and two children.
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