We talked to Hope Solo about why the US women's soccer team skipped a game in protest https://t.co/0EG205Wz0B pic.twitter.com/5O3VT1BwTC
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) December 11, 2015Hope Solo and the US women’s national soccer team were getting ready for practice at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium, where they were scheduled to play Trinidad and Tobago on Sunday in the seventh game of their World Cup Victory Tour. As the goalkeeper surveyed the artificial-turf field, she noticed the hardened white paint on the football yardage markings near her goal and the rocky surface that made practicing her footwork all the more difficult. Solo even reached down and pulled up the turf[.] Megan Rapinoe, the team’s star midfielder, was on the players’ minds—just a day earlier, she’d torn the ACL in her right knee while training at the grassy practice field without contact. On top of that, there was the months-long fight with FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association over the use of artificial turf at women’s soccer venues.
Most of us are no doubt aware the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won the 2015 World Cup, which was hosted by Canada. The USWNT’s 5-2 dismantling of Japan in the final at B.C. Place in Vancouver was a classic that continues to inspire many young female soccer players in this country- and with any luck, will continue to do so for years to come.
What’s less known is the back story behind the USWNT’s bringing the World Cup back to America. Even though FIFA requires all World Cup matches- from the lowliest qualifiers to the tournament final- to be played on grass, world football’s governing body has no problem with women playing on artifical turf. Though FIFA would never for a moment entertain a men’s World Cup tournament played on anything but real grass, their commitment to and concern for the safety and wellbeing of female players doesn’t run nearly as deep.
Canada won the right to stage the 2015 Women’s World Cup despite making it clear that virtually every match would be played on artificial surfaces. Several members of the USWNT considered suing and/or boycotting the Women’s World Cup over FIFA’s comparative indifference when it comes to playing conditions for women vis a vis their standards for men. In the end, protests were limited to words and the tournament came off as planned…but the USWNT hasn’t wavered in their opposition to playing on artificial turf. In their estimation, it’s a simple matter of player safety…something FIFA seems loathe to consider when it comes to women’s soccer.
Our loyal fans: Thanks for standing with us against unsafe field conditions & standing tall for #equal treatment pic.twitter.com/abn560Kitw
— Hope Solo (@hopesolo) December 6, 2015We’ve been fighting this battle for quite some time. Soccer, to be honest, is not meant to be played on turf. The ball rolls differently. There are dead spots on every turf field that you play on. It’s a lot harder on the joints, on the body, on the shoulders, on the knees. It’s a just a different playing game. With that said, you don’t see the men ever playing on turf. You don’t see any World Cups being played on turf—even when the major club teams come to America to play on a turf stadium, they lay sod.
USWNT goalkeeper Hope Solo has been among the more outspoken USWNT players…and it doesn’t take much to understand that her point is valid. Since 2014, every single game the U.S. Men’s National Team has played has been on grass; only 70% of the games played by USWNT have been on grass.
If FIFA and U.S. Soccer won’t stand up for the safety and careers of female soccer players, then the players have little option but to stand up and make their dissatisfaction clear. The problem for USWNT isn’t just that they’re expected to play on fields subject to far less stringent standards than those that apply to fields used by men. It’s also the disparity in pay and marketing (in terms of both efforts and dollars) USWNT players are forced to abide.
When you look at the salaries for the men versus the women, when you look at the bonuses, and particularly for the men’s World Cup versus the women’s World Cup, we got a $1.8 million dollar bonus for winning the World Cup, and we had to disburse it among the 23 players. And then we piece out some bonuses for our support staff who don’t get paid a whole bunch. The men, for losing, got $8 million to share among the players, and they also received millions of dollars for every point that they received in the World Cup. We got paid nothing per point in group play. We got paid nothing for making it into the knockout round. We basically didn’t get a bonus until we won the entire thing, which is [an] incredibly difficult thing to do, and that bonus was quite a bit less than what the men got.
You look at the marketing money put into the men’s team versus the women’s team. You really have to kind of tip your hat to the women’s team for selling out stadiums, because oftentimes you do that with less marketing dollars. We did a side-by-side analysis of the men’s contract and the women’s contract, and it’s very unbalanced, just the way that US Soccer’s money is invested from year to year. It’s just completely unbalanced. The argument is, well, women should not get paid as much as men, because they don’t bring in as much revenue. We hear it all the time. Our argument back is that we have the best ratings between the men’s team and the women’s team, and had we gotten more marketing dollars, we would have more ticket revenue. When we push for equality, we don’t want the exact same thing. We just want it more balanced.
So here we sit in the 21st century…and women are still forced to fight for a fair share of the pie. Not that absolute equity is possible or perhaps even desirable, but as Solo said, expecting things to be more balanced is certainly not unreasonable. USWNT won the World Cup; the men didn’t come close…and yet the men still receive vastly superior ompensation and financial support. The frequently-heard argument holds that since the women’s game doesn’t bring in nearly the amount of money generated by the men’s game, women don’t deserve the same amount of marketing support…but is it a chicken or egg question? Perhaps the reason women don’t draw the crowds or bring in money comparable to that generated by the men is that they don’t get the marketing support.
Whatever you believe and whatever the case may be, there seems little doubt but that women’s soccer is still treated by FIFA and U.S. Soccer as the red-headed stepchild. Millions of American girls grow up playing soccer and believing that they be the next Alex Morgan or Abby Wambach. What they don’t know is that no matter how talented they are and no matter how many World Cups they help bring home, they likely won’t be afforded the same treatment and consideration given to men.
So much for equality.
