Matheson again at the forefront in big moment for Canadian women’s soccer

Diana Matheson stands five-feet tall, however she was a figurative big amongst ladies on the pitch throughout her taking part in days. 

As one among solely three gamers for Canada’s ladies’s workforce with greater than 200 caps to her credit score (Sophie Schmidt and Christine Sinclair are the others), Matheson was on the centre of a few of the largest moments in Canadian soccer historical past throughout her 17-year worldwide profession earlier than retiring in 2021. 

But of her 19 objectives, none have been extra essential than her injury-time strike in a 1-0 win over France on the 2012 London Games, scored on a rebound try and carry Canada to a bronze medal. It was the nation’s first medal on the Summer Olympics in a workforce sport in 76 years. 

In one of many largest moments for the Canadian ladies’s workforce, Matheson stood up when it mattered probably the most. Now Matheson is standing up once more, solely this time the stakes are a lot larger. 

On Monday, Matheson introduced her plans to launch a home skilled ladies’s soccer league in 2025. Matheson and her firm Project 8, and her business associate Thomas Gilbert, are spearheading the undertaking, whereas present Canadian ladies’s workforce captain Sinclair can also be concerned as an advisor. 

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The as-yet-unnamed league goals to have eight golf equipment when it kicks off, with every workforce that includes no less than one Canadian worldwide participant. Two workforce possession teams have already dedicated to becoming a member of the league in 2025: the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS and the Calgary Foothills Soccer Club. CIBC and Air Canada are additionally on board as league sponsors and buyers. 

Since retiring, Matheson, a 38-year-old native of Oakville, Ont., has been pursuing an MBA at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., and enrolled herself within the Executive Master for International Players program supplied by UEFA, European soccer’s governing physique. In December 2021, Matheson and a gaggle of confidants met with Canada Soccer and tabled a proposal to work in partnership with the game’s governing physique to assist the development of the ladies’s recreation in Canada.  

Those discussions stalled, however that didn’t quell Matheson’s need to maintain engaged on bringing a professional ladies’s soccer league that will be the primary of its type in Canada. 

“At that time, no one had a really clear plan of how to begin building a league and what the end product would look like,” Matheson advised Sportsnet. “No one actually had a plan at that time. So, for me, my journey since then has been persevering with to study. I stored doing my government MBA, doing the UEFA grasp program, and simply doing these issues and persevering with the conversations with numerous individuals in Canada. That gave me a greater image of how you can begin to construct this league. Everything I used to be doing in these two applications, I’d instantly apply to the Canadian panorama and be like, ‘Yeah, this will work. Will this work? This won’t work.’ And by means of that course of I bought a a lot better image of how we are able to begin to construct a league in Canada.

“And then I spoke to a colleague of mine in my executive MBA program, Thomas Gilbert, about joining me as a business partner at having a go at building a professional women’s soccer league. So, we’ve been full-time at it for the past six months behind the scenes, and that’s brought us to where we are today.” 

Women athletes around the globe have lengthy needed to combat for pay fairness and higher job alternatives in skilled sports activities. The National Women’s Soccer League has been rocked by sexual harassment and misconduct scandals by coaches over the previous couple of years, which resulted within the gamers coming collectively to assist result in adjustments to how the league offers with such points. 

So, the truth that it took a former high-profile participant with the Canadian ladies’s workforce to steer an initiative to launch a brand new skilled league in Canada shouldn’t come as an excessive amount of of a shock. 

“The narrative around women’s soccer is evolving because great athlete leaders like Diana and Christine are evolving it as we speak,” mentioned Katrina Galas, a ladies’s sport technique guide at In Common Consulting. “They’ve both stepped up many times on the field of play when it counted the most, and now they’re stepping up off the field too, with a compelling approach to proactively building a professional soccer league, by women for women. … The biggest obstacle to creating a professional women’s soccer league in Canada right now, is waiting – waiting even one more minute. It’s time.” 

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Getting the Vancouver Whitecaps and Calgary Foothills Soccer Club concerned proper off the bat was a strategic transfer by Matheson. Both organizations have a protracted historical past of supporting ladies’s soccer of their communities with monetary sources and have been trying to become involved within the skilled recreation. 

It didn’t take a tough promote to deliver them in on the bottom flooring of this new league, in response to Matheson.  

“People appear to suppose there have been actually troublesome conversations and actually arduous pushes to get Vancouver and Calgary concerned,” she defined. “But the trustworthy fact is it wasn’t. The arduous work was in getting the plan collectively and constructing the business case. Once we had that, we went to talk to the individuals on the golf equipment first who we knew shared the identical imaginative and prescient for ladies’s soccer in Canada as us.

“My first call was to (Whitecaps co-owner) Greg Kerfoot because, as a former Canadian women’s team player, I know what he has personally put into Canadian women’s soccer over the past 25 years and still does. Calgary Foothills were next because I had heard from (former teammate) Stephanie Labbe and others that they’ve been pushing the women’s game for years and had been looking around to see how they could take things to the next level and start to build a professional club. So, we went to the two markets that we thought would get onboard first, and they were eager to do so.” 

The purpose for this new league is to have groups throughout the nation, from B.C. to the Maritimes. With the Whitecaps dedicated, one of many subsequent steps for Matheson is to get Canada’s two different MLS groups (Toronto FC and CF Montreal) concerned. Matheson has had preliminary discussions with each outfits’ possession teams, together with MLSE, who personal TFC, the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and Toronto Argonauts of the CFL. 

NWSL groups Portland Thorns, Orlando Pride and Houston Dynamo share the identical house owners as MLS golf equipment. Ideally, Matheson want to see the same possession fashions on this new league. 

“Like the NWSL, we’re looking at different types of ownership groups,” Matheson mentioned. “So, absolutely, we’re looking at the MLS team in those key markets. … MLSE and CF Montreal, we’ve spoken to both of them and they’re aware of our plans. So, we’ll see how those conversations progress over the coming months.”

Getting into two of the most important markets within the nation can be an enormous increase for the potential league, even when TFC and CF Montreal aren’t concerned.

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Galas argued that discovering possession teams in these two cities that perceive the core values of protected sport and governance, and who can “contribute to the positive energy and growth of women’s soccer” in Canada must be the precedence.

“There’s no doubt that both the greater Toronto and Montreal areas are prime target-city markets,” Galas said. “However, the most important factor for success is the ownership group and getting that fit right. …. Brands that quickly recognize this rare chance to invest in building a professional league from scratch, alongside the top players in the country, will stand out.” 

With two groups in place, Matheson and her Project 8 colleagues will now give attention to convincing six different house owners to purchase into the league for the inaugural 2025 season. Once these commitments are in place, the league will apply to Canada Soccer for sanctioning, with Matheson having set a goal of May 2024. 

“Tom and I put in loads of work behind the scenes getting the mannequin and the business plan set earlier than we approached Canada Soccer with this,” Matheson mentioned. “Those conversations have been nothing however constructive.

“They’ve been fully supportive and we’re going to work with them fully in getting this league sanctioned. We want all of our teams in place before we do that, so we’ve got a good runway there. We’re looking forward to working with them closer next year.” 

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John Molinaro is without doubt one of the main soccer journalists in Canada, having lined the sport for over 20 years for a number of media shops, together with Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a web site devoted to in-depth protection of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.