I will, Madam Chair. Thank you.
I want to just come back briefly to the Bob Birarda case, because I think it's important for Canadians who are watching to understand what happened.
Bob Birarda was the U-20 national women's coach until 2008, and in November 2022 he was sent to prison for the sexual assault of underage players.
In 2008 Canada Soccer basically spun it as a mutual decision to part ways when it was announced that he was departing as the U-20 national coach. They explained that the move had to do with Birarda wanting time to attend to his own health and family, and they wished him well in the future.
The independent McLaren report, published in July 2022, states that the communication “that characterized Birarda's departure as being in the mutual interest of both parties without so much as addressing the harassment was a gross mischaracterisation of the circumstances and failed the victims of the harassment, their teammates, and the organisation as a whole.”
There was a robust harassment policy on the books of Canada Soccer when complaints were raised, but the executive failed to follow it at several levels, which are damningly delineated in the McLaren report.
McLaren also found that there was only a small cadre of individuals at Canada Soccer who even knew about the complaints. Other executives on the board were kept in the dark. No trace of the case exists in any minutes. A staff member interviewed as part of the McLaren investigation said, “This is what troubles me...that there are no paper trails.” They also said, “Everything was held behind closed doors and there is no record of what was done.”
In 2021 FIFA became interested in the handling of the sexual misconduct complaint, and Canada Soccer carefully altered the story, claiming the entire board was involved in the swift termination of Birarda, and that obviously wasn't the case.
Mr. Montagliani, when you were asked by the ethics committee at FIFA about this mischaracterizing message, you said that you had nothing to do with it, or you couldn't remember being a part of it.
Is that true?