The strike had been launched on Friday, with players aiming to press for changes with less than a week to the start of Shebelieves Cup.
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The Canada women’s football team called off their strike to protest against pay issues and budget cuts on Saturday, saying in a statement that the national federation had threatened legal action. The strike had been launched on Friday, with players aiming to press for changes with less than a week to the start of Shebelieves Cup. But on Saturday night, the players association issued a statement saying training would resume for their upcoming match against the United States in Florida on Thursday and they would continue their preparations for the remaining matches in the tournament and for the World Cup. In a statement, Canada FA said “the players, while having taken job action, were not and are not in a legal strike position under Ontario labour law.”
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The team statement read: “… They would not only take legal action to force us back to the pitch but would consider taking steps to collect what could be millions of dollars in damages from our Players’ Association and from each of the individual players currently in camp. As individual players who have received no compensation yet for any of our work for Canada Soccer in 2022, we cannot afford the risks that personal action against us by Canada FA will create. Because of this, we have advised Canada FA that we will return to training (Sunday) and will play in the SheBelieves Cup as scheduled.”
An update from the Canadian Soccer Players Association pic.twitter.com/hysGyanG5q
— CanadianSoccerPlayers (@PlayersCanadian) February 12, 2023
Captain christian Sinclair said on Twitter “This is not over. We will continue to fight for everything we deserve and we will win. The SheBelieves (Cup) is being played in protest.” Canada forward Janine Beckie had earlier spoken to TSN, about the strike, saying the team had reached its breaking point. The former Manchester City player said. “There’s not really words to describe how it feels to be here in camp with the national team and know we are not being given the same resources that our men’s team was given last year to prepare for their World Cup… I don’t like the word fair. But it is so incredibly unfair to the women, and the staff, and to everyone that supports this team, works for this team, is a fan of this team. We’ve had enough. It’s way, way, too far gone.”
Canada are the reigning Olympic champions and after the taking on USA, Brazil and Japan in the Shebelieves Cup, the women are set to take part in the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, begining on July 20. They are placed in Group B alongside Nigeria and Republic of Ireland. Their first match will be against Nigeria on July 21.
