World Cup: Canada’s Payday Exceeds $10 Million

Doha, Qatar –

Canada will leave the World Cup after receiving $10.5 million from FIFA for participation in the Men’s Football Showcase.

The 41st-ranked Canadian, who opened the tournament with a 1-0 loss to second-placed Belgium, missed out on advancing to the knockout rounds after losing 4-1 to Croatia on Sunday. Canada will return home to complete Group F play after playing 22nd-placed Morocco on Thursday.

The 32 nation tournaments in Qatar have a total prize pool of $440 million, with teams like Canada that didn’t make it out of the group stage (ranked 17th to 32nd) earning $9 million each. receive.

Additionally, all 32 participants were given US$1.5 million prior to the tournament to cover preparation costs.

Canadian Soccer has an annual operating budget of $30 million CAD.

The amount of Canadian prize money paid to players is part of ongoing labor negotiations towards an initial collective bargaining agreement between the Men’s Players Association and Canadian Football. Both sides said equal pay would be the basis of the agreement with the women’s team negotiating the new contract itself.

Canada’s participation in the World Cup (first final since 1986) has already made the sport a household name and may have attracted the attention of millions of Canadian men.

The final winner in Qatar will take home US$42 million and the runner-up US$30 million.

After that, the 3rd place team gets $27 million, the 4th place team gets $25 million, the 5th through 8th teams get $17 million each, and the 9th through 16th teams get $13 million.

Total revenue from the 2018 Russia Games was $400 million, up from $358 million in Brazil in 2014.

Jamie Rowley, a member of the 1986 World Cup team, said he earned CAD$1,000 each in three matches for Canada in a tournament held in Mexico.

At the 24-team Women’s World Cup in France in 2019, US women’s players won US$4 million from US$30 million purses.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has proposed doubling the prize money for women’s tournaments in Australia and New Zealand in 2023.

In November, Infantino said at the FIFA Executive Summit in Doha that he expected FIFA’s year-end revenue to reach $7.5 billion, more than $1 billion above budget, and year-end spending of $6.5 billion. Told.

Infantino said the profits would be invested “immediately in football”.

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This report by the Canadian Press was first published on November 27, 2022.