Disgraced Canadian soccer coach in court on sex charges as women's game faces reckoning
CBC
Former Vancouver Whitecaps and Canadian National Team women's coach Bob Birarda is scheduled to appear in B.C. provincial court Thursday on nine sex-related charges.
Birarda is charged with six counts of sexual exploitation, two counts of sexual assault and one count of child luring, offences alleged to have occurred over a 20-year span between Jan. 1, 1988 and March 25, 2008, at or near North Vancouver, Burnaby and West Vancouver.
The names of the four complainants are protected by a publication ban. CBC has learned at least three of the four are former soccer players.
Birarda is out on bail and has yet to enter a plea. None of the allegations has been proven in court.
The case is gaining additional attention from outside of Canada as women's soccer globally comes under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
The largest women's professional league in the world is in turmoil south of the border where last week two National Women's Soccer League players accused a prominent coach of sexual coercion.
NWSL players also accuse the league of being complicit in a coverup that allowed Paul Riley to continue coaching for six years after one of the players first complained.
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking for 50 substitute bus drivers, and it'll be recruiting at three job fairs on Saturday, June 8. The job fairs are located at the Atlantic Superstore in Montague, Royalty Crossing in Charlottetown, and the bus parking lot of Three Oaks Senior High in Summerside. All three run from 9 a.m. until noon. Dave Gillis, the director of transportation and risk management for the Public Schools Branch, said the number of substitute drivers they're hiring isn't unusual. "We are always looking for more. Our drivers tend to have an older demographic," he said.