I'll reiterate what I said before.
It's been widely reported that this deal is confusing. I think we have to trust our instincts when we see details of this deal come to the public. It doesn't make a lot of sense.
We don't understand why members of the board would approve a deal like this, knowing that it puts a ceiling on the amount of revenue that can come in from sponsors and broadcasting. We've hit our heads multiple times without, as a singular entity, being able to sell our broadcast rights. We have to go through a third party. That makes things very difficult.
When you give a third party 100% control of where that goes, you then don't have that control. You have players asking questions about where the money is when we've come back with a gold medal and our men's team is playing in a World Cup for the first time in 36 years. You have players coming to the table and knocking on the door, asking the question.
First of all, we don't know what money is available. We don't know what we can negotiate for. Now we know that there's a limitation on that money. Generally what would be considered the largest pot of money for an association would be sponsorship revenue and broadcast revenue. We know that no matter how successful the women's and men's national teams are, there is a set amount of money. For us as players and for the future of our program, that is incredibly concerning.
Having an association decide in 2023, less than six months before our World Cup, that they want to be financially competent this year is very concerning as well—and frustrating. We have said many times that CSB needs to reopen the deal if possible and negotiate new avenues of revenue to come into the association. I think that's for CSB and Canada Soccer to figure out on their own. Also, there should be an inquiry and questions asked of Canadian Soccer Business and the executives at Canada Soccer who signed that deal. What were their intentions and knowledge of the future, considering that this deal could be in place until 2037?