By Amy Tennery
(Reuters) – Canada Soccer released details of its proposed collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with its national teams on Thursday, after the women’s team launched a protest over pay equity issues and budget cuts last month.
The Olympic champions said the governing body had cut training camp days, full camp windows and the number of players and staff invited to camps, among other issues. The sides agreed to an interim agreement over funding last week.
Canada Soccer said the CBAs would see both the men and the women paid the same amount for playing a 90-minute match and both share equally in competition prize money.
It added that the negotiations hinged on the pooling of FIFA World Cup prize money and would require cooperation between the men’s team, women’s team and Canada Soccer.
The details were released as members of the women’s national team were set to appear at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on Thursday.
“We’ve been negotiating in good faith and want to get to a resolution with our National Teams,” Canada Soccer General Secretary Earl Cochrane said in a statement.
“In order to get there, we need both of our National Teams to agree. Our women deserve to be paid equally and they deserve the financial certainty going into the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.”
The Canadian Soccer Players Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The governing body also said it had either agreed to or is addressing demands made by the women’s national team last month with the World Cup less than 140 days away.
Those included providing a “comparable” budget for the women’s team World Cup preparations as to what the men received for their tournament last year and an agreement to share future budgets between the men’s and women’s teams.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Ed Osmond)
