Canada Soccer Gets Flak Again For Limiting Media Access At 2023 FIFA WWC

Summary

• Canada Soccer has limited Team Canada’s media access 
• Canada Soccer draws criticism once again after doing a similar thing at 2022 Qatar World Cup
• Canada’s will play Australia on 31 July to push for a place in the playoffs

Canada has played 2 games so far at the 2023 Women’s FIFA World Cup and currently sits in second place in Group B which also consists of Nigeria, Australia, Republic of Ireland.

Canada have won 1 game, draw 1 and have 4 points tied with Nigeria while Australia is on 3 points. The Republic of Ireland has already been eliminated from the World Cup.

Canada Soccer Restricts Team’s Media Access

Canada Soccer, the governing body for soccer in Canada limited the men’s team media access during the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar and has done the same thing to the women’s team.

In an email to the Canadian Press, Marianne Gagne spokesperson for Canada said

With the accumulated load from the past month, the tech team has decided to give the players extra days off. We will only be training on MD-2 (matchday-minus two) and MD-1 (matchday-minus one), with only MD-1 open to the media. I want to reiterate that any decisions around opening or closing training sessions to the media are made as a consensus between the tech team, players, and I.

The email went on to say that Canada will look to offer other opportunities to the media but did not specify what ‘other’ opportunities would mean. The media isn’t very happy with Canada given that they are going to be playing a do or die game against Australia. If Canada end up losing, they will exit the 2023 FIFA World Cup and will offer the media very little media access!

Canada Must Beat Australia To Make Playoffs 

Canada’s final game in the Group stage will be against co-hosts Australia on July 31. This is a must win game for both teams as Australia suffered a surprise defeat to Nigeria on July 27 when they went down 2-3. 

Australia will hope their top player Sam Kerr will be able to play against Canada as she has missed their first two games due to injury. Coach Tony Gustavsson said they would only get an update on whether Kerr will play against Canada a night before the game! Canada will be hoping to progress as every stage they can reach will help pave their way for a women’s pro league.