Critics of the old deal believed it prevented Canada Soccer from capitalizing on the rising popularity of the national teams.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
Canada Soccer said Friday that a controversial business arrangement with a private marketing firm, which had fuelled years of bad blood between the federation and its teams, prompted parliamentary hearings over allegations of gender inequity, and helped topple its leadership, had been replaced by a new agreement that both organizations described as a fresh start.
The new contract between Canada Soccer and Canadian Soccer Media and Entertainment (CSME), which was known as Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) until a rebrand this week, outlines how the two organizations will split revenue from the sale of commercial assets related to the women’s and men’s senior national teams.
CSME will handle sponsorship, licensing, and broadcasting rights for the next 12 years, with an option to renew for another five years if both sides agree.
“We’re very, very pleased to have found a solution to move forward in the circumstances,” said Kevin Blue, the CEO and general secretary of Canada Soccer, in a news conference at the Toronto headquarters of CSME. He described the new agreement as “the resolution of an issue that has followed Canada Soccer around in several ways, and Canadian soccer writ large around in several different ways, over the last number of years. Some of them financially, some of them psychologically.”
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James Johnson, group CEO of CSME, said the new deal was not “just an extension of a contract. It’s actually a transformation, both commercially and structurally, of our sport here in Canada.”
The investor group and board of CSME includes the owners of the Canadian Premier League and the OneSoccer streaming service.
Under the terms of the new deal, Canada Soccer’s share of annual revenue from the sales will start at 50 per cent for the first $10-million and rise as revenues increase. CSME will ensure a minimal annual guaranteed payment to Canada Soccer, set at $5.25-million in 2027 and increasing $250,000 annually, with additional bonus payments during World Cup years if the men’s team qualifies.
CSME will also pay Canada Soccer an additional $19.5-million over the term of the contract.
Under the previous agreement, which was signed in 2018 and did not include licensing rights, CSB paid Canada Soccer an annual fee and kept all revenue it earned. The Globe and Mail previously reported that the fee started at $3-million in 2019 and escalated each year, topping out around $4-million.
In 2023, Mark Noonan, the then-president of CSB, told The Globe and Mail that the company was losing money on the contract.
But critics said the deal prevented Canada Soccer from capitalizing on the rising popularity of the national teams, as the men made it to the World Cup for the first time in 36 years and the women won Olympic gold. The federation blamed the contract in part for its financial disarray and behind-the-scenes dramas that spilled into public view, overshadowing the on-field achievements of its athletes.
In June, 2022, the men’s national team refused to play a friendly against Panama because of a pay dispute.
The women’s national team threatened to strike during the SheBelieves Cup in February, 2023, over similar issues but returned to the field after Canada Soccer said it would take legal action against the players. Shortly after a parliamentary hearing the following month which probed the agreement and exposed ugly fractures between players on the women’s team and Canada Soccer’s leadership, the federation’s president, Nick Bontis, and general secretary, Earl Cochrane, stepped down.
In early 2024, the players’ association for the women’s team filed a $40-million lawsuit against the members of Canada Soccer’s 2018 board, alleging “negligence and breach of fiduciary duty” over the contract.
Canada Soccer had refused to make the previous deal public, prompting suspicion among players and other parties, and allowing misinformation over some of its contents to spread.
On Friday, Canada Soccer published the new contract and payment schedule on its website, with some redactions, in what Blue said was an effort at transparency. “In view of the previous discourse around,” the original agreement, “we wanted to make sure the public understood” the new deal, he said.
Johnson said that he expected the new agreement will “send a signal of stability” to sponsors who may have been waiting on the sidelines for the two organizations to turn the page.
“We believe after this announcement that the floodgates will open, we believe a lot of new partnerships will come in,” he said.
“I’m very confident in the coming weeks we’re going to be announcing some big partners. This is exciting. We should all be excited because we’re five months out from a World Cup and lots of money is going to come into the sport, and lots of big brands. And this is good for soccer in Canada,” he said.
Blue also said he anticipated that, with the CSME issue resolved, the long-awaited collective bargaining agreements with both the women’s and men’s teams would finally be ratified. “We are expecting that to happen relatively soon,” he said.