As a contender for 2012 Women's Player of the Year, America's Abby Wambach was standing with her wife Sarah Huffman backstage at the Ballon D'Or when Sepp Blatter swept into the VIP room. The FIFA president accosted a rather bemused Huffman, throwing his arms around her, declaring, "Marta, you are the best! The very best!" Blatter had mistaken her for Marta. That would be Marta the Brazilian icon, the Messi of the distaff game, and one of Wambach's fellow nominees that evening.
“He had no idea who Marta was and she’s won the award five times,” said 35-year-old Wambach. “For me, that’s just a slap in the face because it shows he doesn’t really care about the women’s game.”
The most prolific international striker ever (182 goals in 242 games), the outspoken Wambach also put her name to last year's class action lawsuit in which 40 female stars tried and failed to get FIFA to reverse its insulting decision to play the 2015 Women's World Cup on astroturf. The tournament kicks off in Edmonton on Saturday, and, as is now traditional for a country that has lifted the trophy twice and never finished worse than third, the United States will carry the mantle of favourites and, arguably, most interesting team.
Tabloid staple
Midfielder Megan Rapinoe, who came out before this side’s gold medal performance at the 2012 Olympics, is an articulate gay rights advocate and, most recently, vocal critic of the media treatment of
Caitlyn Jenner
. Hope Solo is the best goalkeeper in the world and a tabloid staple via an unhappy knack for controversy and a tempestuous marriage to former NFL player Jerramy Stevens. She served a suspension last year for her part in a domestic violence incident involving her sister and her nephew.
At the other end of the field, Alex Morgan's 51 goals in 84 games and photogenic looks ensure that in a lot of American schoolyards hers is often the third most prominent jersey after Messrs Messi and Ronaldo. That the 25-year-old has co-authored kids' books and posed wearing just body paint for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition has done wonders for her profile too. Not to mention her slew of endorsement contracts with the likes of Nike, Coca-Cola and Bridgestone.
With every women’s international match broadcast live on television, Morgan enjoys recognition, profile and earning power beyond female footballers in just about any other country. Much like the team being a perennial World Cup contender, this is, in part, down to visionary legislation enacted in Washington nearly two decades before she was born.
Part of a much larger 1972 Education Bill, the key clause in Title IX read: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Designed to address inequalities on campuses, it mandated that every female student of a state school have the same access to sporting opportunities as her male counterparts. At that time, there were an estimated 300,000 American girls playing sport in school and college. On the 40th anniversary of the bill, somebody calculated that almost 3.5 million of them now play competitive sport.
It's too easy to say Title IX alone turned America into a female soccer powerhouse. Certainly, the law guaranteed an enormous quantity of players but it's a testament to the USSF that they put structures in place to capitalise on the bonanza and to develop real quality. An advanced regional scouting network ensures that, even in a country this vast, the best 11-year-old girls today are already receiving periodic training by national coaches. The standard of play at every level explains why Stephanie Roche was always going to find it difficult to compete in the National Women's Soccer League.
Same problems
America’s third attempt at a professional club league in just over a decade, the NWSL faces the same problems as its failed predecessors. Women’s soccer is a victim of its own success. The very girls they need to buy tickets are usually too busy playing themselves. At youth level, the game is in such rude health that Mexico’s squad for this World Cup includes 12 players who grew up in the US.
Every December, American university coaches are invited to Clairefontaine to scout members of the French under-17 and under-19 squads and to decide if they might be worth inviting to the US on scholarships. The French acknowledge that the ultra-competitive American collegiate scene, with its first-class facilities and coaching, is the best finishing school for their brightest prospects.
While all the positives of the American scene will be talked up if Wambach, Morgan et al progress over the coming weeks, the system is not without its flaws. In some places, a promising 10-year-old girl can be asked to pay nearly $1,700 a year to play for an elite team. By 16, the annual cost can be more than $7,000. A price tag that precludes many children from poor and immigrant families from pursuing their dream.
A price tag that reinforces the type of inequality Title IX was supposed to eradicate forever.
