Players of the Canadian women’s national team released a statement this Friday (28) to announce that they had reached a provisional agreement on the issues of equal pay and budget cuts with Canada Soccer, the official body of Canadian football .

The athletes, however, stressed that they were disappointed with the general state of the negotiations. “We are deeply disappointed to find ourselves without a more comprehensive agreement at this crucial stage of our timetable,” reads an extract from the memo.

The Canadian team began participating in the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand without a collective agreement with Canada Soccer.

In February, Janine Beckie, one of the team’s leaders, said the group was demanding the same budget for 2023 as the men’s team had for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The athletes also wanted details on how that money was spent, how their budgets compared to those of the men’s team and how money generated from hosting the 2015 Women’s World Cup, hosted in Canada, had been spent.

“We and the Men’s National Team remain committed to finding a long-term solution that provides fair and equitable treatment for our current national teams and investments in the future of Canadian soccer, but for now, our team wants to just focus on soccer.” says the last part of the press release published by the players.

Canada is in second place in World Cup Group B, with four points, tied with group leaders Nigeria, who also have Australia in third, with three, and Ireland, still without points, in last place.

Read the full statement

On Monday, July 24, we reached an agreement in principle with Canada Soccer to secure our team’s compensation in 2024, including the awarding of FIFA Women’s World Cup prize money.

As the extent of Canada Soccer’s financial constraints was revealed, we were forced to choose between compensation and the funding to maintain necessary training camps. We were forced to choose between receiving a fair share of the rewards resulting from our teams’ World Cup successes and our commitment to equal pay and treatment with our men’s national team.

These are choices we should not have made. We are deeply disappointed to find ourselves without a more comprehensive agreement at this crucial stage in our timetable. While many important elements remain for future negotiations with Canada Soccer, we have worked with Canada Soccer to ensure that this interim compensation agreement guarantees, at a minimum, salary equal to that of our men’s national team, within the limits created by Canada’s financial situation. Soccer.

It is not finished yet.

We and the Men’s National Team remain committed to finding a long-term solution that provides fair and equitable treatment for our current national teams and investments in the future of Canadian football, but for now, our team wants to focus only on football. We would like to thank our loyal fans, the teams and players around the world who have been with us, as well as the Men’s National Team for their continued support of our team.

Sincerely, Women’s National Team Players