It’s fair to say that the last person in Canada you’d want to pick a public beef with is Christine Sinclair, the captain of Canada’s Olympic gold medal winners in soccer from the Tokyo 2022 Olympics. You. Are. Going. To. Lose. Sinclair embodies everything virtuous about playing for your sport and your country.

But Canada Soccer has still decided to pick a fight with Sinclair and the national women’s soccer team over cuts to the budgets of the national soccer teams and an alleged failure to keep up payments. At the real heart of the issue is pay equity with the men’s team which had just returned to the World Cup for the first time since 1986. (The men’s 2022 edition of the World Cup generated $440 million to participating teams.)

Last week the Canadian National Women’s Soccer team threatened to strike before the upcoming “She Believes” tournament. Sinclair said it broke her heart to take the action. Then Canada Soccer fired back, saying it would sue the players if the Canadian Professional Soccer Association broke its contract to play in the upcoming tournament.

So Sinclair and her teammates backed off the strike threat— but not off the moral high ground in the media. “We are being forced back to work for the short term,” said Sinclair. “This is not over. We will continue to fight for everything we deserve and we will win. The She Believes is being played in protest.”

What is baffling in this bun fight is that both sides seem agreed on the issue of equal pay for the woman players. ”Pay equity for our Women's National Team is at the core of our ongoing player negotiations. Canada Soccer will not agree to any deal without it," the statement said.

Fine. They can do whatever they want with the money generated by World Cups and other tournaments played by men and women. If they want that split 50/50, so be it. And they agree that the women’s team is a national treasure.

But about equal pay for work of equal value… we have yet to see Canada’s women’s soccer generate anything like what the men generate from World Cups etc. Not even close. Attempts to establish a pro league for women are dormant. So the money to balance that equation has to come from somewhere else. The men aren’t giving up what they earn. Government? Cui compromitto? Cui bono?

As we wrote in July of 2019, “So where is the money supposed to come from to equal Megan Rapinoe’s pay with Lionel Messi or Paul Pogba? Clearly, women’s soccer does not generate the money men’s soccer does. In calling their treatment unfair, the women players seemed to be implying that public money should be shifted to benefit them.”

When this argument on “eating what you kill” was made in negotiations for the American soccer teams, the women sued for discrimination. (After an early decision in their favour, the suit was dismissed on appeal). They asked, “Aren’t women paid the same at Wimbledon?”— and they only play three sets to the mens’ five? Executives quickly capitulated to the howler monkeys on social media.

But that still doesn’t placate women athletes who insist they are victims of discrimination. As we wrote, “The problem Megan Rapinoe and her colleagues have— one that they share with women in many, but not all sports— is that they can’t even make the sale to their fellow women. Statistically women are 51 percent of the population. Yet, outside a few sports like figure skating or during Olympiads, their fellow women take a pass on buying tickets or cable TV subscriptions to watch them.”

Not much has changed in this regard since 2019. There are huge new piles of money coming into sports from digital rights and gambling, and men still generate the lion’s share. How nowhere is women’s sport? They’ve legalized gambling on women’s sports— and no one still goes near them.

Salty comedian Bill Burr admires the skills and dedication of women athletes but says there’s only one culprit in this wonky economics. “Look at the WNBA: they have been playing in front of 300 to 400 people a night for a quarter of a century. Not to mention, it’s a male-subsidized league. We gave you a league, and none of you showed up.

“Where are all the feminists? That place should be packed with feminists — faces painted, wearing jerseys, going f—ing nuts like the guys do! None of you went to the f—ing games. You failed them. Not me. Not men — women failed the WNBA. Ladies, name your top five WNBA players of all time. Name five WNBA teams. Name the WNBA team in your city. You can’t do it!”

“You’re playing in a 20,000-seat arena — 1,500 people show up. That’s not a good night!”

Look, if people want the emotional feminist argument, fill your boots. In the land of good will and virtuous notions Christine Sinclair should get the entertainment money generated by women. But she’s not.

That money, as Burr points out, is going to entertainment vehicles like The Kardashians and RuPaul. Advertisers follow the audience and, despite equal pay settlements across sport, the money is not going to women’s sports. And when we hear political radicals assail men’s sports for drowning out women’s sports, we say, physician heal thyself. The cure lies in your hands, not men’s.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

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