The Star Spangled Banner echoes throughout a packed stadium in Winnipeg, Canada, before the United States Women’s National Soccer Team’s opener against Australia in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Monday night.
Along with the 31,148 screaming fans present according to the LA Times, a FIFA Women’s World Cup Group Stage record of 3.311 million viewers tuned in to see the U.S.’s 3-1 triumph against Australia, according to Fox Sports.
The focus of any international tournament should be the excellent play on field, but performances like U.S. National Team midfielder Megan Rapinoe’s two-goal effort have been overshadowed by the glaring disparity between the women’s and men’s game.
Although men’s FIFA World Cups in 2018 and 2022 will be played on grass, the 2015 Women’s World Cup is the first ever to be played entirely on artificial turf.
After FIFA announced the tournament would be held on turf, U.S. National Team player Abby Wambach and Brazilian National Team player and five-time FIFA Woman Player of the Year Marta headlined a group of players that filed a gender discrimination suit against FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association.
In an interview with NPR in October 2014, U.S. National Team player and a member of the the lawsuit Heather O’Reilly said the decision to use turf, “is a blatant demonstration of FIFA not placing the women side by side with the men. You know, many men’s players refuse to play on artificial turf, actually, and the thought of it being played in the World Cup is almost laughable.”
According to the Quarterly Americas, Brazil spent approximately $13.3 billion to build and renovate a total of 12 stadiums for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In comparison, Canada spent $15 million from Sport Canada’s Hosting Program on the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup according to the Canadian government.
This distribution gap is just one example of difference in funds and pull the men’s side has acquired compared the women’s game.
While men’s soccer is represented by powerful national leagues like the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga, the Spanish La Liga and the Italian Serie A, women’s soccer lacks an equivalent infrastructure to defend the safety of its players and the quality of the its game.
Although the players dropped the suit in January 2015 when it became clear FIFA would not budge on the issue, the playing surface has unquestionably affected the quality of the game displayed in the early group stage matches.
Exciting plays like diving headers are absent because the players don’t want to risk injury.
“Playing on turf affects everything,” Wambach said in an interview with NBC news. “It affects the way the ball rolls. It affects the way the ball bounces. It affects the way you think about going into a slide tackle or not.”
Throughout my many years playing travel soccer, I can attest to the lingering pain of turf burn and the discomfort of playing on a surface that was 10 to 15 degrees hotter than a grass field.
But, the turf itself is the not the problem. It’s merely a symptom of a much deeper issue in international sports. Women’s sports are underfunded and incredibly underrepresented on the international stage.
The fact that Canada could not be bothered to pay the upkeep of grass fields for a World Cup event is ridiculous. These female athletes are just as talented as their male counterparts, and deserve to play on surfaces of the same quality.
Morgan Prewitt is 21-year-old political science senior from Alexandria, Virginia. You can reach Morgan Prewitt on Twitter @kmprewitt_TDR.