Thursday’s SheBelieves Cup opener between the United States and Canada should be an important mile marker on the road to the 2023 Women’s World Cup. It should be a test and a celebration, reigning world champs against Olympic champs.

Yet the Canadian players enter it feeling “disgusted,” “exhausted,” “deflated” and “shattered” amid a dispute with the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA), popularly known as Canada Soccer, which doubles as their part-time employer and the sport’s national governing body.

So, on Thursday in Orlando (7 p.m. ET, HBO Max, Universo, Peacock), while the U.S. women’s national team will take the field under one of the most labor-friendly CBAs in international soccer, as one of the highest-paid national teams, irrespective of gender, their Canadian counterparts will play the game “in protest.”

While neither set of players has publicly revealed plans for a visible protest, “I'm sure there will be something,” Canada’s legendary captain Christine Sinclair said Tuesday. It could even involve the U.S. players, who have spoken up in solidarity with their archrivals. “Let us know how we can be supportive,” Megan Rapinoe said in a weekend Instagram post. Behind the scenes, there have been discussions throughout the week.

In fact, for around 24 hours last weekend, the match itself seemed to be in danger as the Canadian players threatened to strike. That’s when the dispute got ugly and complicated.

Why are Canadian players upset?

The players are furious that roughly six months before the 2023 World Cup, the CSA slashed the team’s funding. The players say the budget cuts have left them with a smaller staff, fewer training sessions and an underserved youth development system, all of which have "compromised" their World Cup preparations.

Those acute concerns have also bled into broader frustration with how Canadian soccer is governed and how the CSA has treated its women’s and men’s teams inequitably.

Is this about equal pay?

Compensation is an issue, but not the central issue. “The pay is actually only a small part of the changes that need to happen,” Sinclair said Tuesday.

The players, who are out of contract and say they haven’t been paid for their work in 2022, have been collectively bargaining with the CSA for more than a year. Pay equity has been at the heart of those negotiations, which were moving in a “positive direction” prior to November’s men’s World Cup, forward Janine Beckie said. The CSA had publicly “guaranteed” pay equity. After a holiday break, the players hoped to come “back to the table in the new year” and “get a contract signed before our lead-in to the World Cup really began,” Beckie said.

Instead, they were eventually told about the “significant” budget cuts, and those became the tipping point.

Are the budget cuts inequitable?

Canadian men’s players, who have expressed their support for the women, said Friday that their budget has also been cut. But the cuts seem inequitable because of their timing. The men were heavily funded ahead of their 2022 World Cup. “All we’re asking for is to be given equal opportunity to our men’s team to get ready for our World Cup,” which begins in July, Beckie said.

Beckie was in Qatar for the men’s tournament, “and I was pretty blown away by just the pure number of staff that the men’s team had,” she said. “Every time we come into camp, there’s probably just about half as many [staffers] as they had. I understand that World Cups and major tournaments require extra staff. But if that’s the case [for] the men’s team, then we expect to be given every staff[er] that [head coach Bev Priestman] requests to have at our World Cup.

“It’s pretty disgusting that we’re having to ask just to be treated equally,” she continued. “It’s a fight that women all over the world have to partake in every single day, but quite frankly, we’re really sick of it. And it’s something that, now, I don’t even get disappointed by anymore. I just get angry about it because it’s time. It’s 2023. We won the damn Olympic Games. We’re about to go to the World Cup with the team who could win it. So we expect to be prepared in the best way possible.”

Why did the players strike and then end their strike so soon?

The players said Friday that they were taking job action and refused to train Saturday ahead of talks with the CSA and its lawyers later that day.

According to players, CSA officials responded by threatening legal action against both the women’s players’ association and its individual members because they considered this an “unlawful strike.”

In Canada, employees and their unions must essentially file a formal request to strike via a government agency. The players reportedly filed this so-called “no-board report” Feb. 7, but by law, they won’t be in a “legal strike position” until at least 17 days after that date.

So the players begrudgingly returned to work. They said in a Saturday statement: “Canada Soccer … told us that if we did not return to work — and did not commit today to playing in Thursday’s game against the United States — 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.”

The players couldn’t afford to take those risks. But they were devastated. Longtime midfielder Sophie Schmidt said she nearly retired on the spot, only to be convinced by Priestman and Sinclair to “see this fight through.”

“To be clear,” Sinclair tweeted, “We are being forced back to work for the short term. This is not over.”

Why did Canada Soccer cut the team’s funding?

With the battle set to continue and the relationship with Canada Soccer seemingly worse than ever, the players began asking broader questions, such as Schmidt’s: “Where is the money?”

Both women’s and men’s players wondered how it could be possible that, with both teams more successful and marketable than ever before, the CSA supposedly couldn’t afford to compensate and fund both teams better than ever.

The answer, it seems, is that the CSA essentially sold away its commercial upside to a private company called Canada Soccer Business.

What is Canada Soccer Business? And why is it problematic?

Canada Soccer Business (CSB) was established in 2018 by the franchise owners of a new men’s professional league, the Canadian Premier League. Those owners knew they’d lose money in the league’s early years, so they wanted a vehicle to subsidize or cover their losses, with the professed long-term goal of growing the sport.

Through CSB, they bought all commercial and media rights from Canada Soccer, then sold those rights on to sponsors and broadcasters. Per the 2019 contract between CSB and the CSA, as reported by TSN’s Rick Westhead, CSB would pay the federation a fixed fee of $3-3.5 million per year through 2027, regardless of how much money CSB is then able to net from sponsors and broadcasters.

The contract, at the time, perhaps gave Canada Soccer some financial security. But it was essentially a bet against the national teams, and it now looks like business malpractice.

Since 2018, the value of those commercial and media rights have exploded far beyond $3.5 million. But the booming revenue doesn’t go to Canada Soccer, it doesn’t trickle down to the players, and it can’t be used to fund the national teams. It goes instead to owners of the men’s professional league, who can do with it what they please.

"Canada Soccer's principal revenue streams have been in large part diverted to Canada Soccer Business to the benefit of the owners of for-profit minor league professional soccer teams," Canadian men’s players wrote in their Friday statement.

“The widely reported deal between Canada Soccer and Canada Soccer Business ensures that the national programs do not benefit from the increased investment in the sport,” women's players wrote on Instagram.

Are Canada Soccer and the players stuck?

Canada Soccer, and by extension its players, seem stuck. In fact, TSN reported that CSB has the option to extend its contract with Canada Soccer for an additional 10 years, through 2037, with its annual fee rising only to around $4 million. (The commercial and broadcast rights are likely worth multiples of that.)

CSB, meanwhile, has no obligation to support the women’s national team. But amid public scrutiny and accusations that it is essentially leeching money away from the team, CSB said in a Monday statement that it has “proactively” offered to “provide incremental resources to Canada Soccer to help further its mission.” CSB added that it has been in “ongoing discussions” related to funding for “a fitting send-off series for the Canadian women’s national team on Canadian soil ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, additional training resources, and continued commitment to improving youth programming.”

“The women’s national team deserves the resources it needs to be successful in the lead up to the Women’s World Cup and beyond,” the statement concluded. “We are ready, willing, and able to partner with all stakeholders to play our part to make that happen.”

Could the government get involved?

The players, nonetheless, have called for increased transparency related to the CSB deal. They have asked Canada Soccer to “immediately open its books and records,” but they federation hasn’t complied.

They have also called for outside investigations and government involvement, which are now happening. Pascale St-Onge, Canada’s Minister of Sport, has said she will get involved, as requested by men’s players. A government committee has reportedly discussed summoning Canada Soccer executives, board members and players to testify in the near future. That committee reportedly asked the federation to supply it with board meeting records dating to 2018, and the federation, per TSN, complied. (TSN’s previous reporting revealed that the CSB deal was struck without proper approval from Canada Soccer’s board.)

What next? What now?

Amid a review of those documents and ongoing discussions, the players have said they will take part in the SheBelieves Cup, which features three games against the U.S., Brazil and Japan in the span of seven days.

But they have resolved to fight. They trained on Wednesday with their shirts inside-out and Canada Soccer's crest hidden. They will skip their next games and strike in April, Sinclair said, if their demands are not met.

Canada Soccer said in its Saturday statement, shortly after threatening the players with legal action, that it “has heard the women’s national team players and has committed to a path to addressing each of the demands made by the players. But Canada Soccer knows that is not enough. There is still work to do.”

The federation also said it was “committed to negotiating a comprehensive collective agreement with both of the player associations of the women’s and men’s national teams. That agreement, once concluded, will be an historic deal that will deliver real change and pay equity in Canada Soccer.”