The Canadian Women's National Soccer Team is both outraged and deeply concerned with the news of significant cuts to the national team programs for 2023. We understand that the Men's National Soccer Team shares our frustration and concerns, and intends to issue its own statement shortly.

With the biggest tournament in women's football history less than six months away, our preparation for the World Cup and the future success of the Women's National Team program are being compromised by Canada Soccer's continued inability to support its national teams. Despite our strong track record of success and history-making achievements for more than a decade, we continue to be told there is not enough money to adequately fund our program and our youth teams.

With the Men's National Team's recent success, soccer in Canada has never been more popular. Canada's national teams have never been more successful, or attracting more corporate dollars. Yet despite these steps forward, we are still stuck asking the same question... where is the funding?

We have been patiently negotiating with Canada Soccer for more than a year. Now that our World Cup is approaching, the Women's National Team players are being told to prepare to perform at a world-class level without the same level of support that was received by the Men's National Team in 2022, and with significant cuts to our program - to simply make do with less. This is an unacceptable burden to put on the shoulders of our players, especially in the most crucial cycle for our team. We are left feeling frustrated and, once again, deeply disrespected by Canada Soccer.

While we continue our preparation for the World Cup with our new budget reality, we've had to cut not only training camp days but full camp windows, cut the number of players and staff invited into camps, significantly limit the already limited youth teams' activities, all while we continue to face immense uncertainty about compensation. We have been told that there will be no home game for our team before the World Cup. We have been told, quite literally, that Canada Soccer cannot adequately fund the Women's National Team, and they have waited to tell us this until now, when we are less than six months from the World Cup.

We are tired - tired of constantly having to fight for fair and equal treatment, and for a program that will give us a chance to achieve what we know this team is capable of achieving for Canada.

This lack of support threatens to reverse the progress we've made as a soccer nation and to send us back to obscurity. For our team to remain a force on the world stage, we need a federation that operates and supports us at the level at which we are expected to deliver - world class. The national teams cannot afford to be the only ones fighting for our success any longer. Enough was enough a long time ago.

We, the Women's National Soccer Team players, are demanding immediate change. Canada Soccer must live up to its public commitment to gender equity and its obligation as the national governing body for soccer in Canada to advance the sport, not drag it down. We expect and deserve nothing less than to be treated equally and fairly and to have our program and our World Cup preparations - funded appropriately.

If Canada Soccer is not willing or able to support our team, new leadership should be found. We are committed to do whatever it takes to create public awareness of this crisis and to force Canada Soccer to start to support the national teams properly.

The players of the Canadian Women's National team.