soccer – Starshine Roshell

Women’s World Cup Champions Are Using Clout to Spotlight Inequality

One is a self-proclaimed “walking protest” with fuchsia hair who sparked petulant tweets from the president. The other is a vocal vegan who riled up the Brits with her celebratory tea-time pantomime during a July game against England. Together, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan led the U.S. women’s national soccer team to its second consecutive World Cup win this summer — and are hoping to rack up yet another victory in their next skirmish: a battle for equal pay.

The California natives and the team they co-captain have enjoyed much public glory as a result of their FIFA wins. In 2015, they were the first women’s sports team to be honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City, which they followed by visiting Barack Obama in the White House. Morgan was voted U.S. Soccer Female Player of the Year for 2018, and Rapinoe was named FIFA Women’s Player of the Year for 2019. Just last month, both were featured in Fortune magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Business issue.

Yet despite the honor and hefty profit they’ve brought to the United States Soccer Federation (USSF), they argue that the men’s team is compensated at much higher rates despite never having won a World Cup. Now, with the eyes of the world — and especially those of idolizing young girls — on them, they’re using their considerable clout to bring attention to that absurd discrepancy.

There are certain things you expect to see at a kids’ soccer game. Gatorade bottles and orange slices. Coaches’ clipboards and cans of spray sunscreen. Here’s what you don’t expect to see: A 9mm handgun.

Michigan dad James Sherrill was arrested recently after pulling a pistol on another player’s dad at a high-tension soccer match between — get this — 6- and 7-year-olds.

We’d like to gasp in horror. We’d like to grimace in shock. But anyone who’s ever schlepped a folding chair to a field knows adult tempers percolate vigorously at kids’ sporting events. All too often they boil over.

“Coaching seven years of Little League has left me believing that parents at all games should be muzzled,” says a dad I know. “I had a guy threaten to not only kick my ass but have his son kick my son’s ass. Over playing time! It was a sad sight to behold.”

He once saw a father spit on an umpire. “Parent ejected, kid embarrassed,” he says.

Another friend once saw a shoving-turned-punching match between two dads at a soccer game. “One of the wives joined in and took a swing,” he says. “The kids came running off the field, then the guys’ kids went to blows. A lovely lesson to teach your 10 year-old.”

Tag: soccer

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Women’s World Cup Champions Are Using Clout to Spotlight Inequality

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