Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Invest to make women’s sport a Mega success
IN all the debate over what should happen to the remainder of the football season in this country, a story in America caught my eye.
Just over a week ago, there was a significant decision in the US women soccer team’s high-profile pay discrimination case against the US Soccer Federation.
A judge ruled that the players hadn’t presented enough evidence to support their claims and dismissed the case. The players have filed a motion to appeal the decision and there is a lot more to come in this delicate but complicated argument.
Despite the dispute being largely about money, it isn’t solely about that. The players want better (and equal to the men) conditions in which to train, travel, rest and play competitive matches.
As I write this, I realise how lucky I was to be an
Olympian. The conditions in which I chased an Olympic gold medal were exactly the same as for my male counterparts.
Every detail, resource and support on offer was the same for both the men’s and women’s GB hockey teams.
I would have loved a bit more legroom on a long-haul flight, but I always knew it was the same for us as it was for the men.
Olympians are moderately paid compared to almost all other professional sports, but it is the same for men and women. There is never cause for an argument over equal pay. The case in the US is too intricate for me to give an opinion on, but I will say that the wages people receive from sport, whether male or female, have to be linked to the revenue generated.
It was why I was impressed that, within their argument, the US women’s team did offer a model whereby “player compensation would be directly linked to how much revenue each team generates”.
That is how the markets work. Bigger live audiences, bigger sponsorship deals and bigger television rights mean bigger wages.
It is why Premier League players are paid more than League One players. It is why Conor Mcgregor is paid more than all the other UFC fighters. Gender has nothing to do with that. The Olympics just don’t operate in a market system.
However, I do place one big caveat on all this. We have to give each women’s sport a chance to rise to the level of the men.
Megan Rapinoe and the the US women’s soccer team have shown what sort of profile they can bring to the women’s side of a sport once they are given a platform to do so.
So, it might be that women’s pay lags behind men’s pay in some sports, but the governing bodies have a responsibility to invest in the women’s game to give it a fighting chance to shine and rise.
Now, if they don’t do that, well, it is discrimination.