The president of the Central Alberta Soccer Association (CASA) has been suspended after an email was sent from his account expressing disdain towards diversity initiatives, saying the initiatives “discriminate against Canadians, especially young males of European descent”.
Breaking: obtained a copy of CASA president Jon Mulder’s email sent Wednesday to 10 Alberta Soccer employees. The email criticized the governing body’s efforts to encourage participation by women, girls, minorities and members of the LGBTQ community.
“Only perverts and predators want to talk about sex and sexuality with other people’s children,” the email said.
“Adults do not need to talk about their sexual inclinations to participate in community sports.”
Alberta Soccer calls email ‘disgusting and offensive’
The message was in response to an email sent earlier that day on behalf of Alberta Soccer CEO Lisa Grant informing members of an upcoming Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) conference.
The conference, hosted by Canada Soccer, is described as focusing on “women and girls in soccer, LGBTQ+ inclusion, soccer at all levels, anti-racism and new entrants to soccer in Canada.”
Grant confirmed Mulder was suspended Thursday morning and said the Alberta Soccer Association (ASA) “acted quickly as these comments and behaviors will not be tolerated.”
“Receiving this email was shocking and these comments are disgusting and offensive,” he wrote in a statement to Breaking:.
“Radical left ideology”
Breaking: attempted to contact Mulder for comment Thursday but did not receive a response.
Conference organizers are currently looking to regional associations for initiatives taking place locally to showcase at the event.
“The primary goal of this conference is to amplify the great work being done in communities across Canada,” reads part of Grant’s email to Alberta Soccer members.
The email from Mulder’s account responded: “This is not a great job. This ideology is proven to destroy everything wherever it is implemented.”
The email described the conference as “completely inappropriate” and said it was a “top-down imposition of a radical left-wing ideology.”
‘There is no place for discrimination’
A Canada Soccer spokesperson praised Alberta Soccer for its decisive action.
“There is absolutely no place for discrimination of any kind in our sport, and the words used were beyond offensive,” interim general secretary Jason deVos wrote in a statement. “We are pleased to see that Alberta Soccer has reacted strongly and quickly to address the matter.”
“We take our national inclusion and diversity efforts seriously: we work hard to attract more players to our ecosystem and welcome fans of all backgrounds to our stadiums. We firmly believe this is the right thing and the way forward to do grow our game in Canada.”
Breaking: also contacted the remaining CASA executives, but they referred the matter to Alberta Soccer.
