TORONTO — Canadian men’s soccer coach John Herdman says Canada Soccer needs to find solutions to its financial troubles.
With a World Cup coming in three years, he adds it has to happen quickly.
Herdman spoke to reporters today at BMO Field on the eve of Canada’s Gold Cup match against Guadeloupe.
“We have to find solutions and find them quick,” Herdman said. “It’s not about pointing fingers. I think the whole group has to come together. The whole game has to come together to find a genuine solution. To make sure our country can perform.
“The players have earned that right. The staff have earned that right. We shouldn’t be going backwards after a World Cup.”
Herdman said the expectation coming off Canada’s appearance at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was that the finances would be in place to take the team to the next level.
“I think everyone expected coming off the World Cup that it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” Herdman said.
Canada Soccer and its men’s and women’s teams have been embroiled in a labour dispute for more than a year. The women’s team is scheduled to report to a pre-tournament camp in Australia’s Gold Coast on Wednesday.
The women have been without a labour deal since the last one expired at the end of 2021. The men are working on their first formal labour agreement.
Both teams have taken job action. The men boycotted a planned friendly game in Vancouver against Panama in June 2022 over their dissatisfaction with the progress of the labour talks.
Earlier this year the Canadian women threatened to strike at the SheBelieves Cup in the U.S., but reluctantly returned to the field after Canada Soccer threatened legal action.
Over the past few weeks, members of Canada Soccer’s executive have been called upon to testify before the House of Commons’s standing heritage committee, where parliamentarians grilled members of the organization over its controversial agreement with Canadian Soccer Business.
Under the terms of the deal, CSB pays Canada Soccer a set amount each year and keeps the rest, which helps fund the Canadian Premier League.
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