Under the radar of our sports inundated country, two
weeks ago the United States hosted a World Cup qualifying tournament that
culminated last Sunday night at PPL Park in Chester, PA. The women’s teams of
the United States, Costa Rica, and Mexico all qualified for Canada 2015, while
Trinidad and Tobago face Ecuador in a playoff series starting tomorrow. In
theory this event showcased the best women’s soccer teams in the region. In
reality it brought into sharp relief the resource gap in women’s soccer and
highlighted the continuing challenges faced by women’s soccer worldwide. Simply
put, while some teams get support from their federations, others receive almost
none. Women's soccer, and support for it, is still in a precarious state. Institutions support it, but many do so grudgingly and under duress.
First, the good: Costa Rica’s fifteen-year investment in
women’s and girls’ soccer bore fruit with the team’s first World Cup berth. Mexico,
though it has stagnated since World Cup 2011, still receives substantial
support from its federation. And the United States…well, the US women’s team is
the best funded in the region (even if it suffers in comparison to the
resources given to the US men). Not surprisingly, the three most well-funded
teams in the tournament advanced. Funding means—at a minimum—full time coaches
and staff, training camps, and equipment. Most teams in the region fail to
provide even these basic needs for their women’s teams.
Indeed, the five other teams in tournament—Guatemala, Haiti,
Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad and Tobago—showed clearly the problems that
women’s soccer faces. Guatemala practices only two times per week, in part
because the players need to work or study; the team receives no money for
stipends. The
Haitian team has no funding from the Haitian federation, and has an
all-volunteer staff. Trinidad and Tobago also has a volunteer coach—Randy
Waldrum, the former Notre Dame women’s coach. His pedigree aside, the Trinidad
and Tobago federation has shown little actual interest in the team. When the Women
Soca Warriors arrived in Dallas, they had been given $500 to last for a week:
from when the team arrived until the tournament began. Waldrum took to Twitter
for help, managing to raise nearly $17,000 from a crowd-funding site
established by Jen
Cooper (including $658 from Haiti, which was returned).
Jamaica too took to social media to fund its team—the Reggae
Girlz. But unlike their Caribbean rivals, Jamaica’s campaign was spearheaded by
the Jamaican Football Federation and Cedella Marley. Marley, Bob Marley’s
daughter and head of the House of Marley enterprises became involved when her
son brought home a flyer about the Jamaican women’s team. She initially offered
“a donation” to the Reggae Girlz, but the federation had different ideas. It
proposed instead that Marley become the face of the team, someone who—in her
words— could “get… the word out there about the program, and…bring some
sponsors to the table.” For her, the choice was easy: given her belief that “every
girl should get the chance to accomplish whatever their dreams are” she said, “I
just wanted to give them a chance to represent.” Without intending to, Marley
became the Reggae Girlz global ambassador. With the blessing of the federation,
Marley quickly put together a fundraising campaign, both inside and outside of
Jamaica. Tuffgong Records produced a series
of videos to introduce the team, and Marley hired an independent sports
marketing firm to create an Indiegogo campaign in the United States. Over all,
the team raised about $200,000.
Trinidad and Tobago’s coach Waldrum noted that the crowd
funding of women’s soccer shows that “we can all come together in time of need.”
And while stories of teams helping each other and “five dollars here, ten
dollars there” donations are heart-warming, handouts do little to help the
sport in the long run. Indeed, the unconventional and short-term nature of
crowd funding could even undercut institutional support for women’s soccer. Financing
teams through emergency appeals—much like appeals for humanitarian aid—is
neither healthy nor sustainable. Federations cannot adequately budget for
coaches and training staff, stipends, meals and housing, if they have no
control over the funding stream.
And herein lies the problem for women’s football. While
outside support for women’s soccer is great, it should not be necessary. These
federations have money, which can be
seen in the support and sponsorship for the men’s national team. The Reggae
Boyz, the Jamaican men’s team, reportedly received $7.5 million for their
failed bid to qualify for Brazil 2014; we did not hear of desperate funding
needs from either Haiti or Trinidad and Tobago in the early rounds of men’s
CONCACAF qualifying (though Trinidad and Tobago have historical
problems with making payments to players and coaches). Federations receive
funds from FIFA and from sponsors, and then set priorities and budgets. Up to
now, most national federations have opted not to fund women. In fact, many
regional member associations provide only the FIFA mandate $37,500 per year for
all women’s soccer programs. Only a few—the United States, Canada, Mexico,
Costa Rica, and (with Cedella Marley’s support) now Jamaica—place res
So what did this tournament show us? In terms of soccer, it
showed that the skills gap is closing. But more importantly--and disturbingly--the CONCACAF
Women’s Championship reinforced that women’s soccer has a long way to go in the
region before it is sustainable. And while in Jamaica Cedella Marley has
committed to supporting the Reggae Girlz for the long-term, most women’s soccer
teams will have to continue without the backing of national federations. After Trinidad
and Tobago’s loss to Mexico, which sent the island nation to a home-and-away
playoff series against Ecuador, a journalist asked coach Waldrum how the team
would find resources to prepare. His immediate answer was simple: “I don’t
know.”
