Two years after receiving an 18-month jail sentence for sexually assaulting players under his care, a former Canada women’s national team coach is yet to appear on any public sanctions list published by Canada Soccer or BC Soccer, the regional governing body for soccer in British Columbia, where the crimes took place.
The revelation has prompted the executive director of the Canadian organization newly appointed to manage reports of abuse and misconduct to call for an international registry of offenders to track individuals who have been banned from sports for misconduct.
Bob Birarda, a former Vancouver Whitecaps women’s team and Canada under-20 women’s coach, pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual assault and one charge of forcible touching in 2022. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail in November that year.
Following Birarda’s sentencing in November 2022, Vancouver Whitecaps current CEO Axel Schuster pledged that the club’s response to allegations would “reach a higher standard today” than when Birarda committed his crimes (Schuster was not yet employed by the Whitecaps at the time).
“We acknowledge and understand the deep hurt felt across our soccer community,” Schuster said in a statement. “We are truly sorry to everyone who has been impacted.”
Canada Soccer, a co-host of the 2026 Fifa World Cup with Mexico and the United States, confirmed to the Guardian that it had banned Birarda from coaching but did not respond to a request for clarification of when the suspension was invoked and whether Canada Soccer published a list of individuals sanctioned by the organization.
“Canada Soccer can confirm that Mr Birarda has received a lifetime suspension from coaching registration with no opportunity for re-training, recertification, or re-evaluation of coaching licence in Canada,” Paulo Senra, a spokesperson for Canada Soccer, wrote in an email to the Guardian.
Coaching licenses in North America are mostly used to indicate a level of coaching education and are generally not required for employment purposes unless stipulated by a specific league or organization.
Asked why Birarda was absent from BC Soccer’s public list of sanctioned individuals, CEO Gabriel Assis said in an emailed statement that its published database reflects only individuals banned by the provincial governing body.
“The BC Soccer Discipline and Sanctions list displayed on our website reflects sanctions issued by BC Soccer only [original emphasis],” Assis wrote. “While we do not publish sanctions imposed by other governing bodies or tribunals, BC Soccer fully complies with those decisions and enforces them within our jurisdiction. Our policies permanently exclude individuals convicted of criminal offenses, including sexual abuse, from participating in all soccer related activities under BC Soccer.”
BC Soccer did not respond to a further request for clarification regarding when it received notification of a Birarda ban and from whom, whether any communication was made public, if BC Soccer can issue a concurrent ban, and why Birarda, whose crimes took place in the Vancouver area while employed by organizations under the BC Soccer umbrella, was not sanctioned by local soccer authorities. Currently, there is no readily available information from Canadian soccer governing bodies relating to any sanctions levied against Birarda.
The Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport, a government organization that manages doping in Canada, took charge of abuse complaint management in the country earlier this year. Signy Arnason, CCES’s Executive Director of Safe Sport, described Birarda’s absence from a public database as “a perfect example of a serious gap that needs to be fixed - no question”.
“We need one national registry and you could also be exploring [historical] registries for serious cases that may involve sexual offenses as well,” Arnason said.
Both Canada Soccer and the Vancouver Whitecaps were widely criticized for how the organizations failed to adequately handle complaints about Birarda’s behavior over many years. Allegations about Birarda surfaced in 2008 and led to more than a decade-long fight by former players for justice. The Birarda case became a leading example of how the leadership of sports organizations failed to take authoritative action on allegations and concerns about misconduct.
In 2019, 14 former Canada national team players signed a letter claiming Canada Soccer and the Vancouver Whitecaps had failed to protect players from abusive behavior by coaches after it was revealed Birarda was coaching high-level youth soccer in Vancouver even after being released years earlier from his contracts with the national team and the Whitecaps.
Andrea Neil, an icon of women’s soccer in Canada, said in a statement at the time that an investigation by a lawyer hired by Canada Soccer and the Whitecaps failed to interview many players about allegations concerning the coach’s behavior. Neil said she was told by the investigating lawyer that it would be recommended that Birarda be banned from coaching.
At a team meeting before departing for a World Cup, U-20 national team players recalled Canada Soccer board member Victor Montaglian, now president of Concacaf, announcing Birarda was suddenly leaving his coaching role. A media release announced the departure was by mutual consent yet gave no reason. Still, Birarda took up and held for several years a position coaching young women with a prominent Vancouver-area club team.
A police investigation was eventually opened in 2020 amid media reports on inaction by Canadian soccer authorities. Birarda eventually pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual assault and one charge of sexual touching.
The Canadian government subsequently held multiple inquiries into abuse in sport over the past several years. Victor Montagliani, in his role as a former Canada Soccer president, and Peter Montopoli, the organization’s former CEO, were called to face questions from elected officials. Montagliani is now President of Concacaf, the host confederation for the Fifa World Cup 2026. Montopoli is COO of the Fifa World Cup 2026 Canada.
The Canadian government’s inquiries led to restructuring how complaints are handled in the country. CCES took charge of the complaint process for federally-funded sports organizations in April 2025.
“We heard that there needs to be a more trauma-informed approach,” Arnason said. “There was a call for improved and more transparent communication in the process, like people not feeling like they were lost and submitting a report and not hearing for months. We are the decision makers on violations and sanctions.
“A lot of times you set up these programs and you bring in people with a sports background. This is not an area where that is what you need. But you also need to have an education and training and experience that is specific to the areas of maltreatment.”
A new CCES safe sport registry lists individuals sanctioned by the organization since April. An automatic sanction applies to any sports participant “convicted of a Criminal Code offence for conduct considered to be Prohibited Behaviour”.
In the United States, the US Center for Safe Sport publishes a centralized disciplinary database across multiple sports governed by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) including soccer, tennis, hockey, boxing, and track and field. The database names individuals that have been sanctioned including temporary suspensions, restrictions and bans.
Recent reasons for sanctions in the US included sexual misconduct and crime involving a minor, an intimate relationship involving a power imbalance, physical misconduct, retaliation, sexual harassment, as well as the broader description of simple “misconduct”.
Arnason said she wants to establish a registry that tracks misconduct nationally and internationally: “We know that people move through the systems and that they move through the provincial level and the club level.”
“They may be sanctioned at one level but there is no awareness at another level that this person is dangerous in relation to their participation in sport. We also know that people not only move within their own country but that they move internationally and there has to be a better sharing of information across countries.”
“The question now is how do we start to apply more pressure on the system to be more transparent around people who, quite frankly, should never be participating in sport again? They are a danger. These are all things that absolutely need to be a part of a national dialogue here in Canada but also internationally.”
