I saw a horrible article earlier this week which was picked up by CNN: FIFA 'deeply concerned' at social media footage of DR Congo's U-20 Women's National Team.
I know I've told this story before, but my soccer coach when I was a kid came from Czechoslovakia. Iron Curtain Czechoslovakia. He used to bark at us in his thick accent that we were spoiled American kids, playing with balls filled with air and playing on fields with grass. In the old country, balls were made up of rolled up socks and the kids played on abandoned lots with rocks and debris. Having a net was a luxury he could only imagine, he had to steal chalk from school and goals were often chalked on the sides of brick buildings. More importantly, though, Coach Minjarik taught me to love soccer, which I still do today.
But Coach Minjarik was talking about growing up in Czechoslovakia with other Czech youths, he wasn't talking about the U-20 Women's National Team in the Czech Republic. No national team in the world, whether it be the men's or women's teams, or age related national teams, should have to practice in the street before a national team match. None.
The CNN video highlights the failure at FIFA to promote and support the Women's game, plain and simple. But instead of just being peeved with FIFA, I'm also annoyed with Megan Rapinoe.
Playing word association, when I think of FIFA, I think of money grubbing bastards. I think of an association so corrupt, they gave the (men's) World Cup to Qatar in 2022. Listen, I could make an argument that Tehran in Iran deserved the 2022 World Cup more than Qatar....
But I digress. When I think of a women's player whose number one priority is money, I think of Megan Rapinoe. While Rapinoe continues to press on in her quest for equal pay for the USWNT,
Alex Morgan lobbies for the survival of the NWSL. Since the Paul Riley Scandal, the NWSL is in real danger of not existing. Many countries around the world don't even have professional soccer leagues for women.
Under scrutiny, Rapinoe was forced to admit that the USWNT team members actually made MORE money than the men between 2015-2019, but her argument was that if the Men won the World Cup during the last World Cup Cycle and the Women won the World Cup during the last World Cup Cycle (which they did), the men would have made exponentially more money than the women.
So Rapinoe is going to the mat for contractual semantics as women's soccer across the world struggles to survive? All I am saying is that Rapinoe is no longer a real social justice warrior. She is selling you that she's a social justice warrior based on her fight to make sure that Megan Rapinoe and a few other elite female athletes are paid the same as elite male athletes. A few news outlets followed the U-20 Congo story, but a few days after the controversy went viral, it quickly faded away. Where was Rapinoe championing her sisters in the Congo?
You counter that Rapinoe was one of the first athletes to kneel and I'm just a jaded writer? That's more than fair, but 2016 seems like a long time ago. All I am saying is that when I think of FIFA, I think of money, and now, today, when I think of Megan Rapinoe, I think of money.
Side Note: Travis Yoesting at the 18 inexplicably took a run at Carli Lloyd this week at her retirement, comparing her to Michael Jackson and Pablo Picasso in her personal life.
Yikes.
Yoesting sucks....
And he's a hack. His writing skills remind me of a poor man's Nancy Armour.
Lloyd's crime in Yoesting's eyes? Not being woke enough.