Fútnotes, Volume 43

All the news that's fit to print, and then some...

November 20, 2023

There was huge news last week, as word got out that the Mexican Senate was preparing to kill women’s sports in the country. Ok not really, but according to an op-ed by Javier Tejado Dondedé in El Universal, it definitely was. It’s not lost on any of us that have been covering the league for any amount of time that certain teams in the league have always been rumored to be looking to kill the league, looking at it as a burden on their men’s programs.

Thankfully the kernel of truth that Tejado Dondedé’s op-ed is based on is just that - one kernel in a much larger pot of corn. There is a bill pending in the Mexican Senate (Artículo 297) that among other things:

It proposes to protect the rights of professional athletes by determining prohibitions on their hiring due to their membership in specific clubs or excluding them from participating in regular teams on a continuous basis. On the other hand, it determines that female athletes who represent Mexico in their specialty in international competitions through the official national institutions of our country will not be able to receive a lower salary than their male colleagues, so the National Sports Associations, as well as The Mexican Olympic Committee, clubs and sports teams must guarantee salary parity, travel expenses for athletes in equivalent monetary value, as well as bonuses, bonuses or similar. They must also be given a level of training with the same quality and sporting events for both men and women must be given the same media coverage. (via Google Translate)

It’s important to note that this was proposed in November 2022, 12 days before the start of the World Cup in Qatar in part to ensure Mexican Women’s National Team members got equal pay with their male counterparts, following an international trend of federations bringing their national team pay into equilibrium (EuroNews).

What this will look like in practice is most likely a minimum wage for first team soccer players, whether they’re men or women. Paola López Yrigoyen, former Liga MX Femenil player currently working on her Master's Degree in Administration, Sports Law and Humanities in Sports at FIFA, wrote an op-ed in El Universal that likened Tejado Dondedé’s article “to the Mexican Soccer industry drowning in a glass of water”, which is both brilliant and brutal.

Despite the protestations of some, politics and sport are forever intertwined. One of the tip-offs for me in the earliest cries for help from those drowning in the glass of water were the sexist tropes that were used to justify the sentiment that this was coming. “To obligate that you pay the same to women that you do to men, regardless of how much the women’s league and their clubs bring in, will simply break the clubs and it’ll be up to the Mexican state to rescue the 18 women’s clubs.” (Tejado Dondelé in El Universal, translation by me) is the same dumb argument we’ve heard forever about why women’s sports should be ignored.

Women’s sports make less money than men’s sports in part because until very recently men in power have forbidden women to play sports and then set up a constant set of hurdles for them in their efforts to be treated equally. After the wild success of the 1971 World Cup that saw an estimated 110,000 people pack Estadio Azteca to watch México play Denmark, the FMF sought to take control of the women’s team after they demanded MXN$2 million¹ (about USD$883,000 in today’s money using a conversion of $17.60 pesos to dollars and an average inflation rate of 3.98% per year between 1971 and today) for the years of unpaid work they did. This resulted in the relative dormancy of women’s soccer in México for almost 40 years.

This 100 year head start also makes men’s teams a safer investment in the eyes of some investors and sponsors. The job of those who run those organizations should be to show those investors and sponsors that they’re investing in and sponsoring the club as a whole, which is a sound investment. Some clubs do a masterful job of this, and it’s evident in everything from sponsorship and television deals to how the club is treated on all facets, from media access and content to just how the players are treated. Other clubs’ actions speak volumes on how they fall short.

A minimum wage at a livable standard for professional soccer players in México (and everywhere else) should not be a controversial topic. And women in sports shouldn’t have to continually fight for validation against institutions that hold their existence against them. If the institutions and those that run them can’t save themselves from drowning in a glass of water, they have bigger problems than women’s athletes.

México

América’s Nicki Hernández is day-to-day with a hamstring injury. She was not available for selection during the second leg of the semifinal against Chivas. (América Femenil via Twitter)

Thank you for reading Golazo del Gringo! If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it with anyone who enjoys women’s soccer.

Rest of the World

It was a giant mess after Gotham FC won the championship after fans realized there would be no celebration for the team beyond a couple of media events. Fans who had suffered for years while the team languished were understandably upset… (The Equalizer, paywall)

The media called out the organization… (The Athletic, possible paywall)

And the club finally put together something that only included season ticket holders and members of the Cloud 9 Supporter’s Group. (Jennifer X. Williams via Twitter)

Image

Chile’s Colo Colo set an attendance record as they punched their ticket to the Campeonato Femenino Final, to be played against Santiago Morning.

Peñarol won their fourth Campeonato Femenino, and will represent Uruguay in the 2024 Copa Libertadores Femenino. Vamo’ Carboneras!

The numbers for the NWSL Final were really good.

Don’t ever let them tell you no one pays attention to women’s soccer.

If you have something that should be included in this segment, please reach out to me via twitter or email me at [email protected].

¹ ELSEY, B. (2020). Futbolera: A history of women and sports in Latin America (pp. 239–244). UNIV OF TEXAS Press.