CNN
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The Canadian women’s national soccer team has called off its strike and resumed training after the sport’s governing body Canada Soccer threatened legal action, players said on February 11.
A day earlier, captain Christine Sinclair told Canada’s The Sports Network (TSN) that the team was going on strike following cuts to its program and pay equity concerns.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the Players’ Association said that Canada Soccer considered the strike “unlawful,” and that players “cannot afford the risks that personal action against us by Canada Soccer will create,” as they “have received no compensation yet for any of our work for Canada Soccer in 2022.”
Canada Soccer said in its own statement that it “respects the players’ right to organize” but that players “were not and are not in a legal strike position under Ontario labor…
2023-02-12 11:51:03
Post from www.cnn.com
The Canadian Women’s National Soccer team, led by its captain Christine Sinclair, has recently reported that they were subjected to immediate return to work after their strike had been called off. Sinclair reported that the team, along with the players and their support staff, had been forced back to training right away, without the compensation and support that had been promised soon after and during their lengthy labor strike.
The captain reported that this mistreatment has only added to their sense of discouragement and frustration, after having been engaged in a 10-month labor strike, which was started in response to the Canadian Soccer Association’s refusal to invest in the teams’ infrastructure and support for their development.
During the strike, the team had hoped for some movement in terms of their demands for pay and other support, but were met with no progress from the Canadian Soccer Association and had to start the season without any further progress.
The lack of support led to the team taking drastic action, threatening to even boycott the Rio Olympic games if they continued to be denied the support they needed.
But this threat eventually proved to be unsuccessful, with the team called back to training after the strike had been called off. Furthermore, there have been reports of the players being kept in the dark about their frustrations, with the team captain only being informed of the situation in the very last minute.
This has led to the captain and players raising the issue in the media, in an attempt to bring light to their situation and to call on the Canadian Soccer Association to provide them with the compensation and support that they had been requesting from the start.
At the moment, the Canadian Soccer Association is yet to respond to the recent reports, and it remains to be seen if the players and support staff will receive the fair compensation and investment in the team that they have been hoping for. It is clear that these reports are a further indication of the need for the Canadian Soccer Association to invest in the success of the Canadian Women’s National Soccer team and the future of the sport.