A few weeks ago, a group of women's soccer players from different countries combined forces to sue FIFA because of what they called "unfair playing conditions." Their argument centers around next year's Women's World Cup in Canada, where five of the six venues will use FieldTurf rather than natural grass. The only exception is Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton.
When I first saw this, I kind of scoffed at it. After all, they used some of the same venues at this summer's Under-20 World Cup and no problems were reported. (Sidebar about that tournament, when I was in Montreal, I actually stayed in the same hotel as the French and South Korean teams.) But their main complaint wasn't about the FieldTurf. It was about the fact that FIFA would never ask men's teams to play on FieldTurf during their World Cup, even if indoor venues are being used (I can still remember the grass pitch installed in the Silverdome during the 1994 World Cup). So, basically, it's a gender discrimination suit.
Then I looked at things a little more closely and realized they have a point. It might not seem like that big a deal, but they're right. Men's players would be so up in arms about the prospect of playing a World Cup on turf that FIFA wouldn't even ask them to. Yet, for the women, that's not a problem. It does seem unfair.
The thing that pushed me over the edge, though, was watching the CONCACAF qualifying tournament that's been going on over the past two weeks. That's right. Two weeks. In October. This is what FIFA does for Women's World Cup qualifying. For the men, it's a two-year process that culminates with the "Hex," a 10-game home-and-home double round robin between the top six teams in the region that begins in March and ends in September. Yet the final round of women's qualifying is one two-week tournament.
I understand that there are far fewer women's teams. In CONCACAF especially. And that finances are a problem in many of them (the stories about the teams from Haiti and Trinidad/Tobago were well-publicized in the lead-up to the tournament). So, it's much easier to hold a tournament rather than making these poorly-funded teams travel all over the region multiple times. It's the structure of that tournament that I have a problem with, though, and it's what makes me think the female players named in the lawsuit are on to something.
For those of you who haven't been following it, the CONCACAF Women's Championship (which is the tournament's official name) is an eight-team event that has been playing doubleheaders in MLS stadiums for the past 10 days. One group plays a doubleheader one day, the other group plays the next day, then everybody moves to a different city for the next game. As for the rest between games, there isn't any. Each team played its first game in Kansas City, then its second in Chicago two days later. There's even only one day off between the semifinals and final! That schedule is ridiculous and, again, it's something they would never ask a senior men's national team to do.
As you probably could've guessed, the attendance at the games not involving the U.S. has been (to put it nicely) minimal. Although, I can't really blame people in Kansas City for not wanting to go to a Guatemala-Haiti women's soccer game on the same night the Royals were clinching the pennant. But that doesn't change the fact it's not really fair to have two teams from the Caribbean playing outdoors at night in Chicago in October in front of 200 fans.
And the TV coverage of this event has been virtually nonexistent. One of FOX's first big gets for Fox Sports 1 was the FIFA rights. The Women's World Cup will be the first tournament that's a part of that deal, so they've been the ones airing the qualifying tournament. Except there's still no one that watches Fox Sports 1 (full disclosure, I only remembered the soccer was even happening because of a commercial during the NLCS). Most people don't even know what channel it is. The games that aren't on Fox Sports 1 (basically all the ones not involving the U.S.), are on Fox Sports 2, a channel whose existence I might be making some of you aware of for the first time right now.
Contrast that to the qualifying cycle for the recently-concluded men's World Cup. ESPN didn't just show all of the American home games, they showed all of the Mexican home games, too. USA Soccer made a separate deal for the road games, which aired on beIn Sport. That caused an outrage, because I don't know of a single cable system that actually carried beIn Sport last summer (it was just added to mine a couple months ago, and I immediately questioned the timing, since qualifying for Russia doesn't even start until 2016).
Women's soccer is growing. The 2011 World Cup in Germany was the best one yet, and the field for Canada has been expanded from 16 teams to 24. Countries like Thailand, Cameroon and Switzerland have already qualified to make their Women's World Cup debuts. But there's still plenty of room to grow, and as much as FIFA is helping the cause, it's also somewhat holding the game back. Otherwise, they wouldn't be playing the World Cup on turf and they'd get more than one off day during the qualifying tournament.
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