NOW SHOW US MORE RESPECT
Carli Lloyd is leading Man City’s Champions League bid but says star women still get a raw deal...
Carli Lloyd, Manchester City’s new mega-signing, has won back-toback FIFA World Player of the Year awards and captained the USA to win the 2015 World Cup.
She has two Olympic gold medals and has scored 96 goals for her country from midfield. She once scored from the halfway line.
it is, then, little surprise lloyd took offence at being asked to play on an artificial pitch littered with sharp rocks during what was labelled a 10-match ‘victory tour’ following the success in 2015.
‘We’d just come home as world champions, but playing on that surface? The men never do,’ she remarks. But then lloyd, 34, has tended to do things her own way.
She was asked to move out of the family home in New Jersey in 2008 after a breakdown in the relationship with her parents.
recently bridges have started to be rebuilt, but none of her family were at her wedding to golfer Brian Hollins in November.
She is matter- of-fact as she speaks after mentoring young girls at City’s plush training base, and her drive to succeed is clear.
a reminder that she is described as the ‘female Messi’, with whom she has often shared the stage at award ceremonies, sparks a confident response.
‘i’m obviously a very different player,’ says lloyd. ‘Messi’s in a league of his own. But when you look at my overall game, i have a completeness to it. if it requires a bit of finesse, i can do that. if it requires a little bit of a physical battle, i can handle that.
‘i want to keep getting better. i want to help City reach the Fa Cup final and the Champions league final.’
lloyd’s switch to Manchester has been a smooth transition, with the world’s best player contributing the only goal in the first leg of last week’s Champions league quarter-final win away against Denmark’s Fortuna Hjorring. The capture of lloyd — who is open to staying beyond her initial three-month switch from Houston Dash — is seen as hugely significant.
lloyd says she ‘ dreamed’ of playing in the Champions league and revealed City’s facilities — which they share with Pep Guardiola’s first team — are in ‘a world of their own’. These details are significant if women’s football in England is to close the gap on the USa. She adds: ‘You’re now seeing every national team closing the gap on us.’
lloyd, along with the rest of her national team peers, is at odds with the US Soccer Federation. The world champions allege they are not treated with the same respect as the men — despite the popularity of the women’s game across the pond and the incredible success of the women’s national team.
The reigning world champions effectively became out of contract players last December, with lloyd claiming they were treated like ‘second- class citizens’. at the heart of this dispute is equal pay but sub-par standards are not far behind, the women argue they have done just as much to promote and develop soccer — if not more — than their male counterparts, yet the gulf is widening. This is evidenced by the fact that US women’s players get the equivalent of £1,200 for a victory and nothing for a draw or a defeat. Whereas the men get £5,000 regardless of the result in their matches.
‘after the 2015 World Cup we had a 10-game victory tour,’ said lloyd. ‘Seven of those games were on artificial pitch. The men don’t play on it and that starts to make you wonder.
‘We need better standards. Men take charter flights, we’re still in coach (economy).
‘There’s a separation and it’s just got to be better.’