{"id":1310692,"date":"2019-05-25T22:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T04:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/rapinoe-kicks-fifa-says-womens-soccer-not-treated-equally\/"},"modified":"2019-05-25T22:28:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T04:28:00","slug":"rapinoe-kicks-fifa-says-womens-soccer-not-treated-equally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/rapinoe-kicks-fifa-says-womens-soccer-not-treated-equally\/","title":{"rendered":"Rapinoe kicks FIFA, says women\u2019s soccer not treated equally"},"content":{"rendered":"
Megan Rapinoe, a member of the United States women’s national soccer team, speaks to reporters during a news conference in New York, Friday, May 24, 2019. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 U.S. star Megan Rapinoe gave FIFA some kicks two weeks ahead of the World Cup, maintaining the sport\u2019s top executives are not doing enough to close a huge gender disparity in investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have essentially unlimited resources. I don\u2019t think that it\u2019s really been a huge change at all,\u201d the 33-year-old Californian said Friday, two days ahead of the Americans\u2019 send-off match against Mexico. \u201cSort of the incremental change that we\u2019ve seen is just not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

A champion at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2015 World Cup, the Seattle Reign midfielder has been the most outspoken American player.<\/p>\n

FIFA doubled prize money for the women to $30 million this year from the amount four years ago and the amount for the winning team to $4 million. That remains a fraction of the money at last year\u2019s men\u2019s World Cup, where France received $38 million from a $400 million pool. FIFA has raised the men\u2019s pool to $440 million for 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see a major paradigm shift and sort of a major overhaul,\u201d Rapinoe said. \u201cThere\u2019s been such a lack of investment for all of these years and such a lack of care and attention that doubling or tripling or quadrupling investment, care, attention to the women\u2019s game I think would be appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

FIFA pointed to the increase in resources devoted to women since Gianni Infantino became FIFA\u2019s president in 2016, including the hiring of Fatma Samoura as secretary general , the first woman to hold the post; the addition of Sarai Bareman as FIFA\u2019s first chief women\u2019s football officer and the establishment of a FIFA\u2019s women\u2019s division; and using video assistant referees at the Women\u2019s World Cup following the introduction of VAR at last year\u2019s men\u2019s World Cup. FIFA said its staff at the World Cup will include 214 women and 218 men.<\/p>\n

In addition to the boost in prize money, FIFA added $11.5 million for teams\u2019 preparations for the Women\u2019s World Cup and $8.5 million for club benefits, raising spending to $50 million. FIFA spent $48 million for teams\u2019 preparations at last year\u2019s men\u2019s World Cup and $209 million for club benefits , so by that metric the disparity is $657 million to $50 million.<\/p>\n

Rapinoe also criticized FIFA for allowing three major finals to take place on the same day, splitting focus that could otherwise be solely on the women. The women\u2019s final in Lyon, France, will kick off at 11 a.m. EDT and be followed by the Copa America championship match in Rio de Janeiro at 4 p.m. EDT and the CONCACAF Gold Cup final in Chicago at 9 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous and disappointing, to be honest,\u201d Rapinoe said.<\/p>\n

FIFA said playing the three finals on the same day would boost attention for all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scheduling of the different events has gone through a comprehensive consultancy process, which has involved all key stakeholders and taken into account different aspects of the women\u2019s and men\u2019s international match calendars,\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cIt is a rare and exciting occurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players on the U.S. team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation in March, charging institutionalized gender discrimination. The USSF countered that pay and benefits for members of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams, bargained by separate unions, can\u2019t be compared and said there was no basis for allegations of illegal conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not this divide. It\u2019s very much a cohesive unit,\u201d U.S. coach Jill Ellis said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t enter the locker room. It doesn\u2019t enter the meeting space. We\u2019re working together and making this work and, yeah, I understand. I\u2019m a woman. I have a young daughter. I understand a lot of the bigger social issues out there in terms of that. But I also know right now the job is to get the team focused and they are focused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preparing for her third World Cup, Rapinoe is among three American co-captains, joined by two-time FIFA player of the year Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan. With short, spikey dyed blond hair, Rapinoe is the most recognizable U.S. women\u2019s player.<\/p>\n

Before the 2012 Olympics, she came out as gay . She knelt during the national anthem three years ago in support of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and this year became the first openly gay woman to appear in Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue .<\/p>\n

Rapinoe is not surprised at attacks on LGBTQ rights and abortion rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cEquality for all requires people who have more of it right now to give up some which I think, obviously, is a good thing for everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cBut some people don\u2019t want to give that up, so they\u2019re doing everything they can to keep all of it to themselves. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s surprising. I think those people are probably going to do everything they can to keep all the power that they have for as long as they possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n

She maintains inequality for women in sports goes beyond soccer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty clear women in sport have not been treated with the same care and financing and all of that that men\u2019s sports has,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s really arguing about that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megan Rapinoe, a member of the United States women’s national soccer team, speaks to reporters during a news conference in New York, Friday, May 24, 2019. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)AP | AP NEW YORK \u2014 U.S. star Megan Rapinoe gave FIFA some kicks two weeks ahead of the World Cup, maintaining the sport\u2019s top executives are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1310692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-09 20:51:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}