Before we do that we should be clear: There needs to be a plan to start a pro league for women. The Canadian women are not rising up the ranks of women’s soccer. They are falling behind and the chances of another London happening are increasingly less likely. The chances of even replicating quarterfinal appearances may be an ask too much soon enough.
The biggest reason for the women falling behind is the same as it is for the men – they have very limited professional opportunities and the ones they have are almost always tied into the whims of the American system. The difference is the women have far less opportunity to pursue clubs outside of the US. The European women’s leagues are almost entirely no-goes without EU passports and even if you do hold one the domestic quota requirements often make them difficult to crack.
The result of that is a considerably thin talent pool to choose from. That's why John Herdman was forced to look for duel Canadian nationals to increase the overall talent leading into Canada 2015.
So, there is no doubt that a C-League for women would be a Godsend.
Unless it failed. This is where I may seem to contradict myself. Whereas I shout down anyone that suggests that C-League men is doomed and we shouldn’t even try, I do suggest that it would be foolish to jump the gun on the women’s side.
Why the difference?
It’s simple really: The men’s club game is far, far, far, far more popular in Canada. Those that argue against that will point to the success of the just finished World Cup and say that it’s evidence that crowds will come out to watch professional women’s soccer. There is zero evidence that national team interest translates to club interest.
A domestic example can be found with the CWHL. In a hockey mad country, the stars of the Canadian women’s hockey team – back-to-back-to-back Olympic gold medalists – play in front of friends and family in second rate facilities. There is no television coverage and next to no mainstream media attention.
Soccer has a fraction of the audience in Canada that hockey does. Women’s soccer a fraction of that even still. Anecdotally, I can tell you that a typical CanWNT story on CSN gets about 10 to 20 percent of the views that a MLS story does. The exception is during the World Cup and Olympics when those numbers are about equal but the interest dies down immediately – it did after London, anyway.
Many will likely be surprised to know that CanMNT stories also get about twice the traffic CanWNT stories do (which is still a fraction of MLS stories).
I don’t point out those numbers as a way to argue about the quality of the women, nor to start a conversation about what’s fair or right. They are what they are. You can’t force people to care, nor guilt them into supporting women’s professional sport. Ignoring this reality is to set yourself up for failure.
The US women learned that the hard way in 2000 when they were offered an opportunity to partner with MLS to create WMLS. Still basking in the glow of the 1999 World Cup the women flatly turned the offer down. In fact they were defiant about it, claiming that MLS was trying to latch onto their success because they couldn’t succeed without them.
Instead of joining forces, the women formed WUSA. At its launch there were many brave predictions about how it would surpass MLS and have a long and successful run.
It folded before the next World Cup even started. We’re now on attempt No 3 to get a women’s pro league to stick. This one – the NWSL – has a much better chance because it's operating as an extension of the USSF. Unlike the two other league’s it’s not completely at the whims of a free market.
Framing those struggles in the US is the fact that it’s entirely possible that more than half the world’s women’s soccer fans are American.
Compare those struggles with the growing game in Europe. There, the women’s teams are extensions of some of the most famous men’s teams in the world. They are benefiting from existing technical infrastructure and operating with the understanding that no one at the club expects them to drive gate and interest. Some may reject the notion of playing second fiddle to the men’s teams, but the growth of the game in Europe suggests it’s working.
The other side of that – as illustrated by the WUSA v MLS fight in 2000 – is that it illustrates another thing that has held the game back here in North America – namely the taking of sides between men’s and women’s soccer. It’s hard to pinpoint exact numbers, but anyone that has closely observed both genders' games understands that there is a portion of fans that refuse to watch the gender they don't follow. We most often focus on the men only side of that divide – painting those who feel that way as dinosaurs in an attempt to shame them into supporting the women. We rarely look at the women only side of the divide and evaluate whether it is harmful to the sport.
Fans are free to consume the sport how they see fit, of course. However, when that allegiance to WoSo manifests itself into efforts to push away any cooperation with the men’s game at all…well then everyone loses. The reality is, in North America, fans of men’s and women’s soccer need to help each other grow.
Bringing this back to Canada, C-League talk should avoid getting dragged down into gender battles. Obviously, proponents of WoSo shouldn’t sit back while blatant sexism pushes them out. As we said off the top, there needs to be a plan in place to get to a fully professional women’s league.
To get there they will need to work together though. The model Canada needs to follow is Europe’s organic one, rather than the US’s “pull teams from thin air” process.
In simple terms that means the following:
1) We need to recognize that economic realities make starting a women’s league from stretch unrealistic
2) Further to that we need to recognize that the larger popularity of the men’s game means that, at this time, it has a better chance to succeed and if it does it will also benefit the women’s side of the game so long as…
3) We demand that teams in the C-League operate women’s programs from the beginning under the same umbrella as the men’s teams.
I would suggest that the W-League would offer the best level of competition.
Bluntly, Canada doesn’t have the player pool to field eight professional women’s teams at this time. However, if they start to build that pool through elite women playing at the W-League level now then that could change in a few year’s time.
Which leads us to the final thing that needs to happen.
4) There needs to be a specific timeline set to work towards the launch of C-League women.
In many ways Canada is in a unique situation. It can start a league where the gap between the men and women is smaller than anywhere else in the world. Doing that requires cooperation and recognition of what’s realistic.
In short, it requires vision and belief. Something that Canadian soccer needs a lot more of.