Canada Soccer, women’s national team reach interim funding agreement

Canada Soccer has reached an interim funding agreement with the Canadian women’s national team that is retroactive to 2022, the two sides announced in a statement Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:

• The terms of the deal “mirror a similar deal with the men’s national team players that includes per-game incentives and results-based compensation,” according to the statement.
• The women’s national team’s previous agreement with Canada Soccer expired in 2021.
• Negotiations for “a new overarching collective bargaining agreement” for both national teams are still ongoing, and the interim agreement may change “on the basis of details” in the final deal, per the statement.

Backstory

On Feb. 11, the Canada women’s national team refused to train with just five days to go before their first match in the SheBelieves Cup after they and members of the men’s national team expressed fresh concerns with Canada Soccer. The action came amidst ongoing collective bargaining negotiations between the two teams and Canada Soccer, which the players said reached a point of “crisis.”

By the night of Feb. 11, the women’s team announced that they were being compelled to return to training ahead of the SheBelieves Cup, a four-team invitational that took place Feb. 16-22,…