Canada Soccer's Jason deVos is hoping he can make things right within troubled organization

This is a column by Shireen Ahmed, who writes opinion for CBC Sports.  For more information about  CBC's Opinion section , please see the  FAQ .

Jason deVos, the newly appointed interim general secretary of Canada Soccer, is hoping to make amends.

It's not been a great year for the organization that governs the sport in this country, from public feuds with both the men's and women's national teams over distribution of prize money and equality of treatment, to a complete upheaval of its leadership, to the federal government imposing conditions on its public funding.

All of this playing out while the men competed in the Men's World Cup in Qatar late last year, and with the women preparing for their tournament that begins in July in Australia and New Zealand.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that Canada Soccer has been largely silent ahead of the Women's World Cup, with little publicity about the women's team. In the wake of that, deVos reached out for the opportunity to share his vision of the organization going forward.

It's not hard to see that coming into this role now would be extremely challenging. DeVos told me that he has met with both the men and women's teams over the past three weeks and he wants to build "equity and equality in this relationship."

DeVos has a history as a player with the national program, but he has also been involved as a coach. He was an assistant with the women's team in 2016 at the Rio Olympics when they won the bronze medal, and had the same role with the men's team in Qatar. He came into this new role in May. 

I didn't skirt around the issue that the women's team has been publicly unhappy with their treatment from Canada Soccer and asked him how he plans to rebuild trust with