USA’s women’s team is demanding equal pay with their male counterparts – and now it’s time for all to unite
It's no wonder it's the American women making the move first - after all, they're far more successful than the men's team
Sponsored by
ASKED about their biggest problem, several of the US women’s World Cup winners joked it was putting on skinny jeans.
“My legs aren’t built for them,” said one.
They have a bigger and more serious problem now — equal pay. The players are united in demanding to be paid the same as the country’s men’s team.
And, no wonder, as the men didn’t even qualify for their last World Cup. Had the women been really bold, they would have asked for more.
After all, they’ve won four world titles and three Olympic golds.
Their male counterparts have six CONCACAF titles, which means something — not sure what — in the mid-Americas.
The men’s team also reached the semi-finals of the actual World Cup - in 1930. In other words, football isn’t the first love among men in the US.
The big stars of their type of football wear padding and look as if they have just climbed out of the USS Enterprise.
Soccer — horrible old word — is growing but its personalities tend to be pre-retirement foreigners.
It surprises no one that the tendency among US women with their long blonde hair and, damn the thick thighs and operation scars on knees, are happy to play football.
MORE WOMEN'S FOOTBALL STORIES
This also worked fine for Robbie Savage.
These women know their worth and, to prove it, they are asking the US Soccer Federation for comparable conditions to the men — and back pay.
The lawsuit, by the entire current squad of 28, asks for financial support for pregnancy and equal daily allowances when playing abroad.
There is no chance of a similar lawsuit in Britain. The American women left us at the gate when it came to organising a sustainable future.
Unbelievably, it wasn’t until 1971 that the FA lifted the 50-year ban cursed on women’s football by sad, old buffoons.
I remember the shock when I was appointed managing director of Birmingham City.
Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister and there was I, refused entry into club boardroom because I was a woman.
There was, and still is, much catching up to do.
But starting from an earlier and less prejudiced base, athletics and tennis became sports in which equality is practised throughout the world.
The simple point here is women get equal treatment where it can be shown they attract big crowds and massive TV audiences and, of course, the money that goes with it.
However, campaigning for equal rewards for our women footballers is next to hopeless.
With a wage of £400,000-a-week paid to a couple of Prem men, you get some idea of the task ahead when you realise that any woman player would be delighted by that much in pennies.
The FA, which has pretty well caught up with positive thinking, is doing its best to encourage growth.
Premier League clubs are also increasingly proud of their women’s teams and schemes. West Ham women’s team will receive around a £650,000 subsidy from us this season.
It is claimed that three million girls play some form of football in England today.
Meanwhile, crowd numbers gradually rise into their thousands for Super League games, while the record attendance for a Lionesses’ match is 45,619 in 2014 against Germany.
So I’m confident of progress. The US experience has shown that the regiment of women will not be stopped — off the field or on it.