Football: the president of the Canadian federation resigns in the context of a crisis around gender inequalities

Canadian Football Federation President Nick Bontis announced his resignation on Monday (February 27th), acknowledging the need for “change”, amid a crisis with the women’s team that calls out inequalities between women and men. men as well as lack of funding.

“While I have been one of the biggest supporters of an equal system in the competitive performance environment for our women’s national team, unfortunately I will no longer be leading the federation when that happens,” Nick explained. Bontis, in a press release.

“I recognize that the current environment demands change,” he added, noting that his resignation is effective immediately.

“Canada Soccer (the federation) and our national team programs are in the process of signing a landmark collective agreement,” he said without giving details, promising a “flagship agreement that will set ‘Canada’ apart from virtually all other member associations of FIFA”.

Earlier Monday, the 13 provincial and territorial federations had sent a letter calling on Mr. Bontis to step down, according to the sports television channel TSN.

A strike in early February

At the beginning of February, the women’s team had led a one-day strike to denounce gender inequalities and the lack of funding, an approach supported by the men’s team.

The movement had been stopped due to the threat of legal action against her by the federation, and the reigning Olympic champions then played the SheBelieves Cup in Florida, a friendly preparatory tournament for the Women’s World Cup this summer.

According to the team’s iconic captain, Christine Sinclair, in 2021 the Federation granted more than 11 million Canadian dollars (just over 7 million euros) to the men’s team, compared to around 5 million Canadian dollars for the women’s team, while the previous year, the spending by the federation was almost identical: just over 3 million dollars for the men, and 2.8 million for the women.

Last year, the Americans, two-time reigning world champions, reached an agreement with their federation to establish equal pay with the men’s team.