Speaker 1: It's nothing new that women in sport are treated unequally
Speaker 1: and face an uphill battle against sexism. But the stunning
Speaker 1: success of the U s women's soccer team offered FIFA
Speaker 1: a roadmap to a better way of doing business, a
Speaker 1: cleaner way, a less corrupt way, a more fair way.
Speaker 1: They didn't embrace it, but women's soccer still offers FIFA
Speaker 1: a chance to crow out of its dark past, the
Speaker 1: hope for a better tomorrow. That's what today's story is
Speaker 1: all about. I'm Connor Powell. This is Episode eleven Equal Footing.
Speaker 1: In May of two thousand and thirteen, the lords of
Speaker 1: Soccer gathered on the remote island nation of Mauritius off
Speaker 1: the coast of Africa for the sixty third FIFA Congress.
Speaker 1: The meeting opened with a sixteen minute long series of
Speaker 1: dazzling and colorful choreographed international music performances befitting of the
Speaker 1: most ambitious of Broadway shows. Then set Bladder was called
Speaker 1: upon to officially open the meeting. Gives you a great
Speaker 1: pleasure and on a ladies and gentlemen, to now call
Speaker 1: upon the president of the organization that has been referred
Speaker 1: to as the guardian of our most precious game. The
Speaker 1: presidents of FIFA Joseph S. Blatter to officially welcome all
Speaker 1: of us yeah around of applause, describing set Bladder at
Speaker 1: that moment as the guardian of soccer was ironic at best.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the delegates to these sixty third Congress of FIFA.
Speaker 1: On st bladders watch, FIFA had stumbled from scandal to scandal,
Speaker 1: and as president, Bladder was awfully close to the center
Speaker 1: of many of the accusations. As those bosses gathered in Mauritius,
Speaker 1: the stink of corruption had only grown stronger. In recent years.
Speaker 1: Bladder and FIFA felt grown in pressure to institute reforms
Speaker 1: or you know, at least look like they were. So.
Speaker 1: After one hundred and nine years, the lords of soccer
Speaker 1: decided it was time to allow women into the club.
Speaker 1: The plan was to elect a few ladies, as Bladder
Speaker 1: like to say, to FIFA's executive Committee, and get a
Speaker 1: much needed public relations win. But Bladder, with his proclivity
Speaker 1: for making inappropriate comments, couldn't even execute this pr stunt.
Speaker 1: In his attempt to praise Australian Moya Dodd, one of
Speaker 1: the three female candidates up for election to FIFA's Executive Committee,
Speaker 1: Bladder found a way to offend. You have a Condi
Speaker 1: date and the good Condi date, and the good looking
Speaker 1: Condi date. As Bladder giggled about Moya Dodd's looks, the
Speaker 1: camera cut to Maria Dodd, who maintained a stone like stair,
Speaker 1: you know, the type you put on when you're seething
Speaker 1: with rage inside, but you don't want to show it.
Speaker 1: And FIFA's president wasn't done putting his foot in his mouth,
Speaker 1: though sadly there's no audio of this moment. After Dodd,
Speaker 1: Lydia in Secara, and Sonya Benami were officially named to
Speaker 1: FIFA's Executive Committee, Bladder stood at the podium and yelled
Speaker 1: say something, ladies. You're always speaking at home, Now you
Speaker 1: can speak here. It was typical Bladder and typical FIFA.
Speaker 1: Even when seeming to do the right thing, it became
Speaker 1: clear FIFA was doing it for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1: As a global nonprofit, FIFA's mandate is to support soccer
Speaker 1: around the globe, not just a men's game, but also
Speaker 1: the women's. Of course, it's always put the men's game first.
Speaker 1: FIFA did organize the first Women's World Championship tournament, in
Speaker 1: sixty one years after the first Men's World Cup. That
Speaker 1: nineteen tournament has been described by some as a silent trigger,
Speaker 1: one that said in motion the modern women's game, and
Speaker 1: there's some truth to that. In two thousand and nineteen,
Speaker 1: more than a billion people around the world watched some
Speaker 1: of the Women's World Cup, and that is a massively
Speaker 1: forward compared to that tournament that was only carried live
Speaker 1: in China and on tape delay in the US. But
Speaker 1: the road to today's women's game is marked by decades
Speaker 1: of sexism and shortsighted greediness. You're gonna hear about how
Speaker 1: FIFA created and maintains the system that has forced women
Speaker 1: to battle and claw for the scraps of FIFA's largest
Speaker 1: all while the lords of soccer enriched themselves. It was
Speaker 1: a run of the mill conference room, you know the
Speaker 1: type with rows of foldable chairs and tables call fee
Speaker 1: on the back. The room was full of sports apparel executives,
Speaker 1: everyone hoping to strike a deal. In the months before
Speaker 1: the FIFA Women's World Championship. That nondescript conference room is
Speaker 1: where Michelle Acres found herself on a stage in Arizona,
Speaker 1: in front of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. I went
Speaker 1: and said, hey, we need your support. Years old. At
Speaker 1: the time, Acres was already one of the top women's
Speaker 1: players in the world, probably the best. At nearly six
Speaker 1: ft tall, Acres ruled the soccer pitch, playing as physically
Speaker 1: dominant a game as anyone man or woman in the sport.
Speaker 1: Yet Acres was a virtual unknown. Support and commercial opportunities
Speaker 1: for the women's game were non existent. FIFA and its
Speaker 1: regional federations had ignored women's soccer for decades, and as
Speaker 1: a result, so did pretty much everyone else in the sport,
Speaker 1: especially the sports marketing and apparel companies. Even though the
Speaker 1: U S national team had just qualified for the World
Speaker 1: Championship in China a few months later, Acres was struggling financially,
Speaker 1: like all the women in the sport. Acres bagged the
Speaker 1: suits in the room to support her, her teammates and
Speaker 1: Team America. She told me, she pleaded, please invest in
Speaker 1: women's soccer. We need us soccer. We need all the
Speaker 1: corporations and people in soccer to support our team because
Speaker 1: we're gonna go win a World Cup. And they laugh.
Speaker 1: There was nothing funny about it, and nothing funny about
Speaker 1: how ill equipped in cash strapped the U S women's
Speaker 1: team was a few months before Acres launched her police
Speaker 1: for help, she and her team had traveled to Haiti
Speaker 1: desperately poor, politically chaotic, and dangerously unsafe. Haiti, the Caribbean nation,
Speaker 1: was in the midst of year of political upheaval that
Speaker 1: included assassinations and coups, but Conka Calf, FIFA's North American Federation,
Speaker 1: shrugged off the dangers and decided to hold its qualifying
Speaker 1: matches for FIFA Women's World Championship on the troubled island.
Speaker 1: Acre says, it was as awful an experience as you
Speaker 1: might expect. Even now, it's hard for me to believe
Speaker 1: anyone in soccer thought Haiti was an appropriate place to
Speaker 1: hold an international tournament, let alone the first women's qualifying tournament.
Speaker 1: We stayed at this hotel that was surrounded by really
Speaker 1: high cement wall, like maybe twenty ft high, with broken
Speaker 1: glass and stuff at the top. The water was off
Speaker 1: on and off all the time, electricity was on and
Speaker 1: off all the time, and of course you couldn't drink
Speaker 1: the water. We basically jumped in the pool like after
Speaker 1: practices to shower. At this time, most of the top
Speaker 1: male soccer players in the world were earning millions in
Speaker 1: salaries and sponsorships. With a mere fifteen dollar a day
Speaker 1: per diem and a thousand dollars a month stipend, Acres
Speaker 1: and her teammates were literally playing for the love of
Speaker 1: the game and the flag on their chests. But as
Speaker 1: bad as the rundown hotel in Haiti was, the trip
Speaker 1: to the stadium was even worse. We had these like
Speaker 1: they're kind of like those kind of tourists buses that
Speaker 1: hotels have that kind of take you from the airport
Speaker 1: to the you know, hotel. That's what we had to
Speaker 1: go to our games. So we're all stuffed on this
Speaker 1: bus thing, uh gelopi bus thing, and all our gear
Speaker 1: was like thrown on top of the bus like you
Speaker 1: know Griswold station wagon. And we had guards hanging on
Speaker 1: the sides of the bus with these huge automatic weapons,
Speaker 1: and the people were like grabbing the bus and sucking
Speaker 1: the bus and shaking. It was so it was scary.
Speaker 1: Now FIFA treated all of the women's teams around the
Speaker 1: globe like garbage. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, there
Speaker 1: was no money for the women's game. But you might
Speaker 1: think that the U S team, based in the largest
Speaker 1: economy in the world would be given additional resources. That's America, right,
Speaker 1: But they didn't. Everyone under FIFA's umbrella, from the regional
Speaker 1: organizations to the advertisers to the government, they all refused
Speaker 1: to cough up any money. And whatever American patriotism existed
Speaker 1: in that Arizona conference room, it didn't extend to the
Speaker 1: U S women's national team. Everyone ignored Acres except no
Speaker 1: one believed except for one guy. That one guy was
Speaker 1: Mike Hoban, vice president of soccer promotions at Umbro. What's Umbro?
Speaker 1: If you're old enough, you might remember Umbro from your childhood.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, it seemed like everyone had a
Speaker 1: pair of their brightly colored nylon draw strings soccer shorts.
Speaker 1: After a mildly successful pro soccer career in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Hoban knew all about struggling financially to play the game
Speaker 1: you love, Mick Hoeban gave me his card and said,
Speaker 1: I'm with Umbro. I want to sign you. Umbro, which
Speaker 1: sponsored the Brazilian legend Pelee, signed Acres to a major deal,
Speaker 1: the first ever for a female soccer player and for
Speaker 1: the first time in her career. Acre says she didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about money. She wasn't rich, but she
Speaker 1: wasn't struggling either. But but, but but she was literally
Speaker 1: the only woman in who could say that, and Acres
Speaker 1: his financial success was completely due to Mick Hoban's personal interest,
Speaker 1: not any of the lords of soccer who controlled the
Speaker 1: sport or anyone else. And it with the first FIFA
Speaker 1: Women's World Championship right around the corner, it looked like
Speaker 1: the safe might be cracking. The money men who had
Speaker 1: so long ignored the women's game might be ready to
Speaker 1: make an investment. Welcome to China and a truly historic occasion.
Speaker 1: With Chinese pop music blaring, Tianni Stadium and the busy
Speaker 1: metropolis of quang Chu was buzzing. Sixty fans stopping, cheering
Speaker 1: and yelling, It had all the trappions of a World
Speaker 1: Cup final on the field. Pale always the ambassador for
Speaker 1: the beautiful game. Welcome the two teams. It's the FEBA
Speaker 1: Women's World Championship Final. For the eminem's gun, It's the
Speaker 1: United States versus Norway. The presence of the greatest soccer
Speaker 1: player ever only added to the pageantry and spectacle of
Speaker 1: the moment. As the U S women took the pitch,
Speaker 1: their white Adida's uniforms gleamed under the stadium's lights. With
Speaker 1: the red and blue stripes, there was no doubt Team
Speaker 1: America had arrived. Look a little closer at the photos
Speaker 1: from the match, though, and you'll see how ill fitting
Speaker 1: the uniforms really were. They were baggy and long. The
Speaker 1: sleeves were designed for athletes with far broader shoulders than
Speaker 1: any of the US players. Oh, there were guys uniforms.
Speaker 1: They were from the guys team. The US women's team
Speaker 1: were wearing hand me downs. The uniforms had once belonged
Speaker 1: to an American boys youth squad. It was the latest
Speaker 1: in a long line of slights and snubs for a
Speaker 1: team on the cusp of a world championship. But most
Speaker 1: of Acre's teammates didn't care. She didn't really care. They
Speaker 1: were young and just happy to be playing, and they
Speaker 1: hand me down uniforms were, if you can believe it,
Speaker 1: a step up. Six years earlier, the US Soccer Federation
Speaker 1: gave Acres and her teammates mismatched and numberless men's practice
Speaker 1: jerseys for an international competition in Italy. We had to
Speaker 1: sew the patches on um US soccer patch. It was
Speaker 1: just kind of here you go. FIFA had brought the
Speaker 1: eyes of the soccer world to southern China in the
Speaker 1: fall of Still it wasn't anywhere near the gusto reserved
Speaker 1: for the men's game. Remember, in nineteen FIFA demanded Argentina
Speaker 1: install a new color TV transmission system to make sure
Speaker 1: the World Cup and its sponsors looked perfect on TV.
Speaker 1: Thirteen years later, FIFA couldn't have cared less what the
Speaker 1: women were wearing. Still, a tournament of this size for
Speaker 1: women and nominally backed by FIFA had never been attempted before.
Speaker 1: It was remarkable for an organization that had not just
Speaker 1: ignored the women's game, but, as the journalist Grant Wall
Speaker 1: points out, actively worked to undermine it for decades and decades,
Speaker 1: FIFA his view women soccer with total disdain. Until the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, FIFA had supported bands on women playing soccer,
Speaker 1: both professionally and recreationally in countries like the UK, Germany
Speaker 1: and Brazil. It's really shameful how long it took FIFA
Speaker 1: to get on board with women's soccer. Sexism has long
Speaker 1: been the status quo for the lords of soccer. By
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, that began to change ever so
Speaker 1: slightly when at the forty five FIFA Congress, Ellen Villy,
Speaker 1: a Norwegian delegate, address soccer's governing body. She told FIFA
Speaker 1: to stop ignoring the women's game. Surprisingly, President Joel Havlange
Speaker 1: and General Secretary Set Bladder agreed. That's how the tournament
Speaker 1: came about. With communist China desperate to host an international
Speaker 1: sporting event and willing to put the cost. Havlang and
Speaker 1: Bladder saw a payday for FIFA up with little to
Speaker 1: no financial risk if it failed, which, let's be honest,
Speaker 1: the man of FIFA half expected it to. The candy
Speaker 1: maker Mars signed on as the sole sponsor. Today's game
Speaker 1: is presented by Myers Milky Way Bar. Enjoy the smooth
Speaker 1: chocolate and caramel taste of the original Smoothie. It should
Speaker 1: come as no surprise that the chauvinistic, male dominated organization
Speaker 1: that is FIFA had some irrational concerns about women's biological
Speaker 1: sporting abilities. The man who ran FIFA thought the women
Speaker 1: should use a smaller ball, believing grown women incapable of
Speaker 1: handling a regulation size one. That plan was ultimately scrapped,
Speaker 1: but FIFA did shorten the women's games from the traditional
Speaker 1: ninety minutes down to eighty one. US player joked at
Speaker 1: the time that FIFA was afraid their ovaries would fall out.
Speaker 1: U S goalkeeper Mary Harvey, who would later be come
Speaker 1: a senior FIFA official, never understood the decision. It didn't
Speaker 1: make sense. Why are we playing any minutes games? I
Speaker 1: played ninety minutes with my club. Why am I playing
Speaker 1: eighty minutes here? And we are on the way as
Speaker 1: the blast ball flash? Really is what the side up.
Speaker 1: Throughout the tournament, the twelve teams dismantled the idea women
Speaker 1: were unable to play the sport at a high level.
Speaker 1: The final was no different. America's star forward Michelle Acres
Speaker 1: is physical and aggressive style was particularly impressive. There we
Speaker 1: see Michelle a first golf Don't watch the so dangerous
Speaker 1: pour off the wall, fade on the ground and the
Speaker 1: newcapy figure jump high in the air, redirect the ball
Speaker 1: at the ball. What a fantastic goal. If you watch
Speaker 1: the games, you heard the commentators constantly reinforcing the idea
Speaker 1: that the women's game wasn't inferior, wasn't daintier, like so
Speaker 1: many global soccer headlong belief place scrappy. Here in the
Speaker 1: opening stages of this second half, as Michelle is getting
Speaker 1: up off the ground, I believe it's the old knee
Speaker 1: making contact with face and that spencer. Certainly both the
Speaker 1: police that one bit, Both Norway and the US were
Speaker 1: proving just how wrong soccer's ruling elite had long been.
Speaker 1: Seconds left in this World Championship when the final whistle blew,
Speaker 1: we wait simply for the whistle and the United States
Speaker 1: I finally won a World champions Jeff in soccer, and
Speaker 1: look at the chimlation chall le field. Back home, the
Speaker 1: U S women's team was hailed as heroes and we're
Speaker 1: quickly booked on pretty much every national TV show, and
Speaker 1: they were welcomed home with a New York City ticker
Speaker 1: tape parade. Yeah sorry, I might have gotten carried away
Speaker 1: a bit. That's what should have happened, But that's not
Speaker 1: what happened. Let me see, Michelle Akers did score two goals,
Speaker 1: and they may Americans did win the tournament in China,
Speaker 1: that's true, but there was no ticker tape parade or
Speaker 1: TV network opportunities, just three journalists waiting for the team
Speaker 1: at New York's JFK Airport. Money Nope, no fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar payday like the men's champions Just five dollars for
Speaker 1: the players who are out of college. And they couldn't
Speaker 1: even claim a World Cup victory. FIFA refused to bestow
Speaker 1: the title of World Cup on the women's tournament. No. Instead,
Speaker 1: they went with this ridiculous and no doubt financially lucrative title.
Speaker 1: It's the Feball Women's World Championship Finals for the Eminem's Gun.
Speaker 1: Did you catch that? The first ever FIFA Women's World
Speaker 1: Championship wasn't merely sponsored by Eminem's. The trophy was literally
Speaker 1: called the Eminem's Cup. Delectable chocolate morsels that never melt
Speaker 1: in your mouth. Eminem's maybe, but they are still candy.
Speaker 1: It makes me want to throw up. But I also,
Speaker 1: you know, shake my head. I'm like, gosh, just you know,
Speaker 1: it's mind blowing, and but it's it's sort of um
Speaker 1: humiliating in one sence too, and also just it's an
Speaker 1: outrage to me. And but it's also like laughable. The
Speaker 1: trophy's name hardly seems appropriate, especially compared to the religious
Speaker 1: reverence the men's hardware has long been given. FIFA at
Speaker 1: least had the good sense the craft the trophy in
Speaker 1: the shape of a soccer ball instead of a miniature eminem.
Speaker 1: But knowing FIFA, my guess is Mars just didn't pony
Speaker 1: up enough cash. Whatever outrage they felt at the name,
Speaker 1: Mary Harvey says she knew what she and her teammates
Speaker 1: had accomplished as far as I was concerned, we had
Speaker 1: won the World Cup. It just happened to be the
Speaker 1: Women's World Cup, and what FIFA chooses to call it
Speaker 1: or not call it was kind of their problem, not mine.
Speaker 1: They were the type of parties where you sip top
Speaker 1: shelf liquor while standing underneath a ten ft ice sculpture
Speaker 1: and eating orders from a waitress that would be on
Speaker 1: the cover of some fashion magazine in a few months.
Speaker 1: These are the types of parties FIFA is known for,
Speaker 1: and the types of parties Michelle Acres found herself attending
Speaker 1: following Team America's victory that would be at these World
Speaker 1: Cups or men's events and being treated kind of like
Speaker 1: Royalty as the best women's soccer player in the world
Speaker 1: and with an Umbro deal to prove it. Acres was
Speaker 1: soccer Royalty, robbing elbows with the sports ruling elite as
Speaker 1: they enjoyed the gluttony of FIFA's empire. Acres knew all
Speaker 1: of the lords of soccer, most of them by first name,
Speaker 1: Jal Horse, Franz, Chuck, and of course Sep. I would
Speaker 1: be wearing a dress and you know, all these black
Speaker 1: tie things, and they would stand there and look me
Speaker 1: up and down, and then step he would come over
Speaker 1: and he'd extend his hand and oh, Michelle, you look
Speaker 1: so lovely. Can we see more? The leering, the suggestive comments,
Speaker 1: the demeaning questions, they were all features of life inside
Speaker 1: of FIFA's inner circle. I'm in the room and this
Speaker 1: is their culture. So I accepted that part of it
Speaker 1: to be in their culture to try and change it.
Speaker 1: Access to the room, as Acres described it, allowed her
Speaker 1: to see FIFA's outrageous wealth and culture up close, and
Speaker 1: how it's fortune was shared with the men of the sport.
Speaker 1: I started seeing everything the guys had and then what
Speaker 1: we had. And when I said okay, well, we're going
Speaker 1: to have that, and I didn't talk about it with
Speaker 1: my team. I just did it. When it came to
Speaker 1: funding the wins game, FIFA showed little interest in spreading
Speaker 1: the wealth. It wasn't recruiting long term sponsors or cultivating
Speaker 1: corporate partners like it was doing on the men's side.
Speaker 1: US Soccer mimic FIFA's position, insisting it couldn't sell interest
Speaker 1: in the women's game. The sponsorship opportunities, they said over
Speaker 1: and over, just weren't there. And yet American officials still
Speaker 1: demanded US female soccer players where Adida's gear at all
Speaker 1: times without providing it like they did for the men.
Speaker 1: The women were trapped in a contractual relationship that didn't
Speaker 1: provide them with basic equipment and at the same time
Speaker 1: limited their ability to pursue outside sponsorships. I said, guys,
Speaker 1: they should be giving us cleats. If they're not going
Speaker 1: to give us cleats, then they can't demand we wear
Speaker 1: a brand. When I signed with Umbro, I came into
Speaker 1: camp wearing Umbro stuff because they didn't give us anything
Speaker 1: to wear. Then US Soccer got mad and said, no,
Speaker 1: you can't do that, and I said, yes, I can
Speaker 1: then give us gear to wear off the field, Whispers
Speaker 1: that Acres was difficult A troublemaker soon followed. Younger teammates,
Speaker 1: many of whom were still in college, were urged by
Speaker 1: male US officials to keep their distance. God help them,
Speaker 1: don't go near her, because you don't want any of
Speaker 1: that rubbing off on you. Acres the line of attack
Speaker 1: went wasn't standing up for her teammates, but selfishly promoting
Speaker 1: her own Umbro contract over US Soccers deal with Adidas.
Speaker 1: There was blowout from my team to me about that.
Speaker 1: It was sort of seen as this, yeah, selfish kind
Speaker 1: of act, rubbing in their face act, when it really wasn't.
Speaker 1: As Women's World Cup approached, this have versus have not competition,
Speaker 1: encouraged by the wealthy leaders of FIFA, would begin to
Speaker 1: undermine Team USA's asked for a repeat championship. It was
Speaker 1: just ten minutes into the much anticipated rematch, so it's
Speaker 1: been a branch start for the Norwegians. When Norway's growth
Speaker 1: set maneuvered and adjusted the ball ever so slightly along
Speaker 1: the white corner arc, lining up a shot in the
Speaker 1: opening minutes of the FIFA Women's World Cup semi final,
Speaker 1: you could hear the importance of the moment as the
Speaker 1: Americans set their defense against Norway's corner kick or what
Speaker 1: a cola cake throw espath will take it? That you
Speaker 1: could even hear the Americans talking so clearly in Sweden's
Speaker 1: ros Valen Stadium is still surprising to me. To this dick,
Speaker 1: what's the difficult one for the don't keeper? And it
Speaker 1: said brow I had laid, I think it's It was
Speaker 1: the biggest rivalry in FIFA's blossoming Women's World Cup tournament,
Speaker 1: and the Swedish stadium was basically empty. The four thousand
Speaker 1: or so spectators on hand were a far cry from
Speaker 1: the sixty thousand who saw the US and Norraway play
Speaker 1: in China four years earlier. If championship for the Eminem's
Speaker 1: Cup was a massive step forward for the women's game,
Speaker 1: tournament was easily two steps back, not only for the
Speaker 1: U S side, which lost to their arch nemesis Norway
Speaker 1: in the semifinals and the USA find themselves a girl behind,
Speaker 1: but also for the women's game in general. Gone were
Speaker 1: the pack Chinese stadiums were placed instead by a few
Speaker 1: hundred family and friends in near empty Swedish venues. FIFA
Speaker 1: had done little to invest in or grow the women's
Speaker 1: game in the four years between the tournaments. In front
Speaker 1: of the camera set Bladder love to praise the women's game.
Speaker 1: The development of women's football since nine is tremendous. The
Speaker 1: future of football will be feminine, and FIFA conferred the
Speaker 1: title of a World Cup on the tournament, but not
Speaker 1: much Ellens had improved. The US star Mia Ham joined
Speaker 1: Michelle Eacres with a massive endorsement deal, landing Nike as
Speaker 1: her financial backer, but the economics of the sport on
Speaker 1: the whole still sucked for female soccer players in both
Speaker 1: the US and around the world. Soccer was no road
Speaker 1: to riches. It remains an economic sacrifice. Only a select
Speaker 1: few were paid anything but a measly per diem. Women's
Speaker 1: World Cup champions Norway received a ten thousand dollar a
Speaker 1: year stipend from the Norwegian Soccer Federation. That's it. One
Speaker 1: of their top players, Linda Madalin, survived by making a
Speaker 1: living as a part time private investigator, earning the nickname
Speaker 1: the Magnum p i of international soccer. And it was
Speaker 1: just as bad for the Americans. Most of them were
Speaker 1: still largely living off of their meager daily food per
Speaker 1: diem at a thirty dollar a day stipend his compensation
Speaker 1: for lost wages. America in Norway were the two biggest
Speaker 1: brands in women's soccer, and they were playing too empty
Speaker 1: seats and paint out of their own pockets to do it.
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, the women's team were pressing for a
Speaker 1: new labor contract with US Soccer, and this is why
Speaker 1: the team said they lost. They were too focused on
Speaker 1: fighting for better treatment to focus on the game. As
Speaker 1: the Olympics approached, the leaders of the women's national team
Speaker 1: said they would not go to Atlanta without first inking
Speaker 1: a better financial deal. Even before the fax machine started
Speaker 1: eeping and slowly churning out the offer sheet, the stars
Speaker 1: of the U S women's national team knew what it
Speaker 1: would say. Michelle Acres, Mia Ham, Julie Faulty, Christine Lily
Speaker 1: and Joy Faucet had been negotiating, really battling with soccer
Speaker 1: officials for better resources for nearly a decade. Akers remembers,
Speaker 1: we just want to be the best in the world.
Speaker 1: We want to have the best coaches, we want to
Speaker 1: have the best training environments, we want to have the
Speaker 1: best gear. We want to play in the best tournaments.
Speaker 1: We want to develop as athletes, we want that same opportunity.
Speaker 1: So to me, it was all about gaining equal access
Speaker 1: to that. But this offer, now staring them in black
Speaker 1: and white, was as disappointing as it was unacceptable. Win
Speaker 1: gold at Atlanta Olympics or get nothing, no bonus for silver,
Speaker 1: and certainly no money for bronze. It was in stark
Speaker 1: contrast to the men's deal, which paid out bonuses for
Speaker 1: each win, and the men they weren't even expected to meddle.
Speaker 1: Olympics may not have officially been a FIFA event, but
Speaker 1: US Soccer was a FIFA member. The decision by the
Speaker 1: Lords of Soccer to limit financial support to the women's
Speaker 1: game set the tone for all soccer federations. It allowed
Speaker 1: you a soccer to cry poverty when it came to
Speaker 1: the women's team, while at the same time ramping up
Speaker 1: spending on the men's side. It was a particularly unequal
Speaker 1: system since the US women's side had established itself as
Speaker 1: the premier team in the world. Former U S goalkeeper
Speaker 1: Mary Harvey says the team felt second class. It hurts
Speaker 1: sometimes when we saw things that, you know, no matter
Speaker 1: what kind of what we did, we didn't see the
Speaker 1: economic benefit of it. By the time the contract offer
Speaker 1: came in, Acres and her teammates had had enough. We need,
Speaker 1: you know, basic things that the men's team had had
Speaker 1: for a long time, and US Soccer said no. With
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Olympics just months away, for the first time,
Speaker 1: the US women had leverage, their leverage the star players,
Speaker 1: Mary Harvey remembers they took the lead in the negotiations.
Speaker 1: The players who were starting, players who had more leverage
Speaker 1: than the rest of us. Did this on behalf of
Speaker 1: all of us because they wanted us to have better conditions.
Speaker 1: Starting midfielder Julie Faudy reviewed the offer. She crossed out
Speaker 1: the Olympic bonus, clauses and facts back the contract. The
Speaker 1: message was simple, do better pay us what we're worth.
Speaker 1: Like FIFA, US Soccer had never really contemplated what women's
Speaker 1: soccer was worth. The women's side was viewed as a
Speaker 1: financial drain, and so in retaliation for using its offer,
Speaker 1: US Soccer canceled the team's flights to an upcoming training camp,
Speaker 1: locking out the nine most important players on the U
Speaker 1: S women's team. US Soccer then went on the offensive
Speaker 1: in the media, attacking the stars of the team. They
Speaker 1: tried everything they could to demean us and basically called
Speaker 1: us little girls. The women held strong. US Soccer wanted gold,
Speaker 1: they needed it, and eventually they caved a green, not
Speaker 1: only to provide bonuses for gold, silver, and bronze, but
Speaker 1: also agreeing to provide pregnancy leave and nanny's for players
Speaker 1: with small children. US Soccer realized they couldn't bully us
Speaker 1: are intimidate. It was going to be a bigger game
Speaker 1: than just these little girls acting out. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a legal battle against giants. Ironically, US Soccer
Speaker 1: was rewarded with something far later than just a gold medal,
Speaker 1: which the US women won. Seventy six thousand rabbid and
Speaker 1: passionate fans were on hand to watch the US women's game,
Speaker 1: proving there was a gigantic, untapped market for women's soccer.
Speaker 1: Here's Mary Harvey. We weren't a curtain raiser, we were
Speaker 1: the event. That's a big deal, and people was there.
Speaker 1: FIFA saw that. On June the traffic on the Jersey
Speaker 1: Turnpike was brutal, even worse than usual. When Team USA's
Speaker 1: bus did move, it was only a few feet at
Speaker 1: a time. Jolting forward and then jerking to a stop.
Speaker 1: The team was anxious to get to New Jersey's Meadowlands
Speaker 1: Stadium for the first game of the World Cup. They
Speaker 1: had spent the last year training and doing every TV
Speaker 1: interview and commercial they could to sell ticket and build anticipation.
Speaker 1: Corporate America had noticed, and the stars of the team
Speaker 1: were everywhere. I could be champion of Women's World Cup Soccer.
Speaker 1: I can be a goal like soccer or power power.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for Women's World Cup Soccer? Brought to
Speaker 1: you by Blood Light. After the heroics of the Olympics,
Speaker 1: interest in women's soccer had surged. FIFA, however, remain skeptical
Speaker 1: that a Women's World Cup could attract global attention. So
Speaker 1: we were up against the prejudice, an old way of thinking.
Speaker 1: That's Donna Dave Verona, a former Olympic swimmer and chair
Speaker 1: of the Women's World Cup organizing Committee. That's skepticism from
Speaker 1: FIFA weighed on the players who remembered the empty stadiums
Speaker 1: four years earlier in Sweden. As they pulled into the
Speaker 1: Meadowlands parking lot. They couldn't believe their eyes. Americans are
Speaker 1: cheering on this team in this sport unlike just about
Speaker 1: any other. They heard the screams of go USA and
Speaker 1: of we love you, Mia, Mia worship, and then saw
Speaker 1: thousands of fans primed and ready to go, young girls
Speaker 1: and white women's jerseys, not just soccer moms and their
Speaker 1: kids attending games, teenage boys with their shirts off and
Speaker 1: Team USA painted across their chests. Take by the opening
Speaker 1: match was a sellout. Seventy seven thousand fans filled the stadium,
Speaker 1: and the excitement only grew as Team USA kept scoring
Speaker 1: Christy in winning. In the summer of the sports world
Speaker 1: was consumed by the Women's World Cup, not just the
Speaker 1: U S team, but the entire slate of matches. The
Speaker 1: average attendance for the thirty two games was thirty seven
Speaker 1: thousand fans, with more than seventy eight thousand on hand
Speaker 1: to watch Mexico in Brazil. By comparison, a year earlier
Speaker 1: in France, the average attendance at the Men's World Cup
Speaker 1: was roughly forty three thousand people per match. By any measure,
Speaker 1: this was a success, But these crowds at Women's World Cup,
Speaker 1: they almost didn't happen. The international organization that governed soccer, FIFA,
Speaker 1: George stadiums would be half empty. Stephen Vanderpool, the head
Speaker 1: of media relations for the Women's World Cup, told me
Speaker 1: FIFA didn't believe there was any real interest. FIFA envisioned
Speaker 1: a smaller event, a tournament that was held in smaller stadiums,
Speaker 1: basically in the eastern part of the United States. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: the people that were involved with the big committee for
Speaker 1: the Women's World Cup and the people that ran it
Speaker 1: had worked on the ninety World Cup for the men
Speaker 1: and knew what was possible. FIFA didn't believe women's soccer
Speaker 1: players could draw sizeable crowds. The lords of soccer wanted
Speaker 1: a safe event in small five to ten thousand seed stadiums,
Speaker 1: definitely not New Jersey's massive meadowlands or California's Grand Canyon
Speaker 1: like Rose Bowl. World Cup organizers like Donna Dave Verona
Speaker 1: instead bet big and ignored FIVA, believing the interest was there.
Speaker 1: I think it has to do with chauvinism and the
Speaker 1: fact that the FIFA membership wants to protect the men's game,
Speaker 1: and some of them felt if the women encroach on
Speaker 1: the game, it somehow undermines the credibility of the men's game.
Speaker 1: FIFA didn't argue or try to stop them, but they
Speaker 1: didn't do much to help either. The American public believed
Speaker 1: in US, but a lot of the top sponsors didn't.
Speaker 1: Even as ticket sales were steadily growing in the months
Speaker 1: before the opening game, FIFA's powerful marketing arm once again
Speaker 1: stayed on the sidelines, unwilling to help the women's brand,
Speaker 1: and let's be honest, probably leaving money on the table.
Speaker 1: We had to really struggle with the sponsors to get
Speaker 1: them to activate the sponsorship. Many didn't. They just didn't
Speaker 1: believe we could do it. Some global brands like McDonalds, Fuji,
Speaker 1: and Gillette ultimately did sign up as advertisers, but reluctantly,
Speaker 1: and even when they did sign sponsorship deals, they went small.
Speaker 1: That was a mistake, Vanderpool says. When we sold out
Speaker 1: the opening game, I think it was such an eye
Speaker 1: opener to everybody in the world. By the time the
Speaker 1: tournament got underway, the brench of World Cup fever has
Speaker 1: reached a crescendo. In just three short weeks. Everyone was
Speaker 1: scrambling to find ways to ride the wave of anticipation.
Speaker 1: Even ESPN and ABC, FIFA's official broadcast partners, had to
Speaker 1: rework their TV schedules to capitalize on the interests. This
Speaker 1: is the biggest game in the lives of these USA players,
Speaker 1: and you could say that for China to US an
Speaker 1: what in front of a record ninety thousand fans Women's
Speaker 1: World Cup Final was nothing short of extraordinary. Acres Michelle
Speaker 1: Acres cuts to land, but it's right at Gohl and
Speaker 1: yes she can score from there. Exciting, hard fought one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty minutes of utterly gripping athleticism, played under
Speaker 1: the hot California's son and the historic Rose Bowl Stadium,
Speaker 1: and it would end in one of the most spectacular
Speaker 1: moments in sports history. Refereece just looked at the watch.
Speaker 1: That's it the winner. I'll be Women's World Cup will
Speaker 1: be sited on pedalt kicks. When the whistle blew, the
Speaker 1: game was tied nil nil, one by one China in
Speaker 1: the US came to the line to take their penalty kicks.
Speaker 1: They found themselves tied once again, four to four, with
Speaker 1: a single US player left to take her shot. Chat
Speaker 1: Stain will take it. She missed a penalty kick against
Speaker 1: charlat Pump and they lost that air. Then Brandy Chastain
Speaker 1: just drilled the penalty kick past China's golding Chastain, sprinted
Speaker 1: and then dropped to her knees, ripping off her jersey
Speaker 1: and flexing her arms in an explosion of pure celebration.
Speaker 1: It is to this day one of the most iconic moments,
Speaker 1: not just in women's sports, but in all of sports.
Speaker 1: Women's World Cup was a success. It's set records and
Speaker 1: both live attendance and TV audience, and it even turned
Speaker 1: a profit of four million dollars on a paltry thirty
Speaker 1: million dollar budget. Still, while FIFA President Set Bladder was ecstatic,
Speaker 1: Donna Dave Verona said some FIFA members still refused to
Speaker 1: believe there was a market for women's soccer outside of
Speaker 1: the US. They wouldn't believe their own eyes. Some of
Speaker 1: the FIFA members says, after we sold it out and
Speaker 1: it was so exciting. Not in my country. This is
Speaker 1: not going to happen in my country. The photos had
Speaker 1: all the blood and gore of a crime scene. In
Speaker 1: one photo, shins with the skin sheared off. In another,
Speaker 1: a once white Nike sock saturated with blood from knee
Speaker 1: to ankle. The photos had been tweeted out in two
Speaker 1: thousand and thirteen by American Sydney LaRue in Australian Sam Kerr,
Speaker 1: two of the best female soccer players in the world.
Speaker 1: To say they were angry, it would be an understatement.
Speaker 1: Some of the world's top female soccer players are fuming
Speaker 1: they may have to play on artificial grass and next
Speaker 1: year's Women's World Cup finals in Canada. Canada had been
Speaker 1: awarded the upcoming two thousand and fifteen Women's World Cup
Speaker 1: and FIFA had approved a decision to play most of
Speaker 1: the games not on grass but on synthetic skin ripping,
Speaker 1: blood inducing plastic turf. Players like all time leading US
Speaker 1: score Abby Wombach were piste and speaking out should be
Speaker 1: grass names, not blood. It was almost twenty five years
Speaker 1: since the first women's tournament in China, and once again
Speaker 1: the women's side was having to speak out about unequal treatment.
Speaker 1: The stars of the women's game rightfully argued that men
Speaker 1: would never be subjected to a plane surface as harsh
Speaker 1: as turf. It is a gender equality issue. No chance
Speaker 1: would the men ever play a World Cup on turf,
Speaker 1: and I think that the women are being treated as
Speaker 1: guinea pigs. FIVA remained unmoved by the social media pressure,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and fourteen, eighty one players from
Speaker 1: more than a dozen countries sued FIFA in the Canadian
Speaker 1: Soccer Federation for gender discrimination. It was the type of
Speaker 1: bad pr FIFA's embattled but all powerful president set Bladders
Speaker 1: didn't need, with the rumors of vote buying, bribery and
Speaker 1: corruption and a US federal probe swirling around, and there
Speaker 1: was an easy fix. For a couple of million dollars,
Speaker 1: Canada's skin ripping artificial fields could be retrofitted and replaced
Speaker 1: by soft, lush, safe grass. FIFA had made a profit
Speaker 1: of four billion dollars on the previous two thousand and
Speaker 1: fourteen Men's World Cup in Brazil and had billions in
Speaker 1: the bank. Money wasn't the issue. Sexism was. The Men's
Speaker 1: World Cup was given brand new stadiums, brand new venues
Speaker 1: around Brazil, and all we're asking is for a great
Speaker 1: circuit plan. Fighting the women on this issue seems such
Speaker 1: a tone deaf, short sighted decision, especially for Bladder, who
Speaker 1: had long prided himself as the original supporter inside FIFA
Speaker 1: of the women's game. Women's football is definitely my wouldn't
Speaker 1: say my baby, but I considered myself a little bit
Speaker 1: as a good father of the organization of women's football
Speaker 1: in FIFA. As an organization, FIFA had spent most of
Speaker 1: the last four decades short changing the women's game. Still,
Speaker 1: Mary Harvey, the U S women's goalie in the early
Speaker 1: who lived through years of pathetic resources, remembers as often
Speaker 1: the lone voice of support for the women's competition. You know,
Speaker 1: I saw Bladder do some things that helped advance woman's football.
Speaker 1: After her playing career wrapped up, Harvey joined FIFA in
Speaker 1: two thousand and three as the Director of Development and
Speaker 1: remembers pushing for the creation of an under seventeen women's
Speaker 1: World Cup like the men had. I went into the
Speaker 1: President's office and lobbied for it. Bladder not only listened,
Speaker 1: but decided seemingly unilaterally to follow Harvey's advice and announced
Speaker 1: his decision at an executive committee meeting. We're doing this.
Speaker 1: Anybody object when the FIFA president says that, right, who's
Speaker 1: dumb enough to actually open their mouth and say something?
Speaker 1: Answers nobody, But I mean that's an example of where
Speaker 1: he said we're doing this. Donna Dave Verona, the chair
Speaker 1: of Women's World Cup, also remembers Bladder as someone who
Speaker 1: could plant a seed of an idea within FIFA and
Speaker 1: make it happen. Step had his negative aspects, but he
Speaker 1: he was a vision narry. He wasn't afraid to say
Speaker 1: that stuff. So he planted a seed. But were they
Speaker 1: going to be a thousand percent behind it and put
Speaker 1: the money where the math is? No. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Bladder would also make public comments that would undermine the
Speaker 1: women's game, as he did in two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: Recently he was asked how should women's soccer be made
Speaker 1: more popular? He said, well, they should wear shorts or shorts.
Speaker 1: If Bladder and FIFA wanted to make the changes to
Speaker 1: Canada's field turf, it would have happened, but it didn't,
Speaker 1: and instead FIFA threatened to suspend any player who challenged
Speaker 1: in court FIFA's artificial turf mandate. The women dropped the
Speaker 1: lawsuit and FIFA agreed in the future never to host
Speaker 1: a tournament on artificial grass. It was a small consolation
Speaker 1: for the players who still had to face plastic fields
Speaker 1: and bloody kneecaps. After seventeen years at the helm of
Speaker 1: international soccer, it's hard to know where set Bladder begins
Speaker 1: and FIFA ends. The two had been intimately linked for decades.
Speaker 1: FIFA was his baby. Nowhere was this more true, says
Speaker 1: journalist Grant Wall, than on the women's side of the sport.
Speaker 1: He takes a lot of pride in the role that
Speaker 1: he had and created the first Women's World Cup hosted
Speaker 1: by FIFA. But FIFA had done a terrible job with
Speaker 1: women's soccer over the decades. Then, almost overnight, Bladder was gone,
Speaker 1: pushed out by the sports sponsors in two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: under a shadow of corruption. FIFA president Set Bladder has resigned.
Speaker 1: With Bladder gone, and after more than a dozen senior
Speaker 1: soccer officials were indicted by the U S Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: there was optimism this would lead to a new attitude
Speaker 1: within FIFA on issues of equality. Former U S star
Speaker 1: turned TV analyst Julie Foudy tweeted, quote, Hallelujah, Set Bladder
Speaker 1: is out. Unquote. The US star Carly Lloyd was optimistic
Speaker 1: that decades of sexism and organizational inequality might soon be
Speaker 1: a thing of the past. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be really really good for our game, and I think
Speaker 1: the next leader um person in charge really needs to
Speaker 1: step in and create equal rights for men and women.
Speaker 1: FIFA does have a new human rights policy and a
Speaker 1: female General secretary. However, when Bladder's replacement, Gianni Infantino, stepped
Speaker 1: forward to present the US women their World Cup trophy
Speaker 1: in France in two thousand nineteen, a deluge of booze
Speaker 1: rained down on him. Fans were angry at the seemingly endless,
Speaker 1: crappy treatment women suffered at FIFA's hands. Little it seems
Speaker 1: has changed. Corruption is still a problem at FIFA, and
Speaker 1: as Mary Harvey pointed out, it's not just what the
Speaker 1: corrupt FIFA members did with the money, that's what they
Speaker 1: didn't do. I mean, I got pretty angry because you've
Speaker 1: been told your whole life women's football candid this, or
Speaker 1: you can't have that because there's no money. And then
Speaker 1: one day you lift the veil and see what people
Speaker 1: were doing with the money. It makes you pretty angry.
Speaker 1: As journalist Grant Wall explains, the issues of inequality within
Speaker 1: FIFA remain pronounced. The legacy of all of that is
Speaker 1: still there today, where FIFA likes to say it's enlightened
Speaker 1: today about women's soccer, but these entrenched attitudes from men
Speaker 1: inside FIFA towards the sport of women's soccer are still there.
Speaker 1: I'm told FIFA has significantly increased the prize money for
Speaker 1: the women's game, setting aside thirty million dollars for the
Speaker 1: two thousand and nineteen Women's World Cup. As the winners,
Speaker 1: the US team walked away with a four million dollar
Speaker 1: pay day, more than double the two thousand fifteen award
Speaker 1: and a massive step forward from the pay to play
Speaker 1: days of their es, but it's still a paltry amount
Speaker 1: compared to the men whose prize pool in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eighteen was four hundred million dollars, with the French
Speaker 1: team earning a staggering thirty eight million dollars for its victory.
Speaker 1: FIFA's attitude has long been the men's World Cup makes
Speaker 1: more money and they should enjoy a larger payday. However,
Speaker 1: FIFA is a nonprofit and it's mandate is the support
Speaker 1: soccer around the world. That mandate doesn't distinguish between the
Speaker 1: men's game and the women's game. Increasingly, FIFA is out
Speaker 1: of step with the sporting world. Many other nonprofits that
Speaker 1: oversee both men's and women's sports, particularly in tennis, I've
Speaker 1: already started to even out prize money Wimbledon, the French Open,
Speaker 1: the US Open. There's a business case to be made
Speaker 1: to invest more in women's soccer. The Men's World Cup
Speaker 1: is likely only to grow incrementally in the future. It's
Speaker 1: already a ratings behemoth. However, there's a lot of growth
Speaker 1: left on the women's side. Want proof. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and twenty two, fans crowded into camp No Stadium in
Speaker 1: Barcelona for a semifinal match between Barcelona and Wolfsburg, breaking
Speaker 1: the record set back in at the Women's World Cup final.
Speaker 1: Barcelona FC has poured money into their women's team and
Speaker 1: the results speak for themselves. Serious investment by others would
Speaker 1: likely lead to greater revenues, which FIFA should one. There's
Speaker 1: still a lot of frustration in the women's soccer community
Speaker 1: that not only did FIFA not support women soccer for decades,
Speaker 1: there's still not doing nearly enough to make the Women's
Speaker 1: World Cup into the type of money making extravaganza that
Speaker 1: they did with the Men's World Cup. However, Gianni Infantino
Speaker 1: is just as dismissed of the women's game as his
Speaker 1: predecessors were defending the pay and balance by sarcastically saying
Speaker 1: maybe one day women's football will generate more than men's football.
Speaker 1: Not only is that unlikely to happen given the sheer
Speaker 1: popularity of a men's game, but FIFA and its regional
Speaker 1: partners around the world are still actively working to prevent
Speaker 1: any real investment in the women's sport. Local federations like Conka,
Speaker 1: Caffe or come Bowl or only asked to spend fIF
Speaker 1: of the nine million dollar global development budget on the
Speaker 1: women's game. Mary Harvey, the former US goalie and FIFA
Speaker 1: development official, belies FIFA should have treated the women's game
Speaker 1: in the late nine nineties similar to a growth stock
Speaker 1: like Google or Amazon. I think it could be much bigger,
Speaker 1: or it could have been bigger faster if maybe it
Speaker 1: had been treated as a high growth opportunity earlier. FIFA,
Speaker 1: though a humble nonprofit on paper, has proven at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it cares most about maximizing profit,
Speaker 1: so it's never too late to embrace that investment strategy.
Speaker 1: It's very clear that FIFA is leaving money on the table.
Speaker 1: They haven't maximized what's out there potentially for the Women's
Speaker 1: World Cup and in the sport on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: I think Mary Harvey said it best. A corrupt organization
Speaker 1: busy stuffing money into its suit pockets is not investing
Speaker 1: wisely in the future. But that can change. The potential
Speaker 1: growth on the women's side is not just in revenue,
Speaker 1: but in goodwill, in karma. FIFA, bruised and battered by scandal,
Speaker 1: has a chance to do the right thing in a
Speaker 1: global way. That's not just good public relations, it's just
Speaker 1: playing good and that, more than anything, is what the
Speaker 1: beautiful game needs now. And the thing is, the calls
Speaker 1: for change aren't going to stop. In February of two
Speaker 1: thousand and twenty two, US Soccer and the women's national
Speaker 1: team reached an agreement to pay four million dollars in
Speaker 1: back pay and to close the pay gap between the
Speaker 1: men's and women's sides. The agreement settles a gender discrimination
Speaker 1: lawsuit filed in two thousand and nineteen, and it puts
Speaker 1: the onus on FIFA to either equalize pay between the
Speaker 1: men's and women's teams or force the US men's side
Speaker 1: to take a pay cut to make up the gap,
Speaker 1: though it remains to be seen how this will play out.
Speaker 1: This kind of pressure is needed, Michelle Laker says, to
Speaker 1: force FIFA to reckon with its past discrimination of women.
Speaker 1: They should be uncomfortable, they should change, and I shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to ask for that. Change doesn't happen unless it
Speaker 1: makes people uncomfortable, unless it's demanded, unless it's radicalized. Almost
Speaker 1: you have to force change. You can't be nice about
Speaker 1: asking for equality. For me to even say ask for
Speaker 1: equality is just ridiculous. On the next episode of the
Speaker 1: Lords of Soccer, the eyes of the world are on Qatar,
Speaker 1: the host of the two thousand and twenty two Men's
Speaker 1: World Cup. The tiny nation is furiously building infrastructure to
Speaker 1: handle the tournament, but at a horrific cost. Is FIFA
Speaker 1: ready to own up to the scandal in the desert?
Speaker 1: The Lords of Soccer, How FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game
Speaker 1: is an Inside Voices Media production in conjunction with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. The series was written and executive produced by
Speaker 1: Gary Scott and me Connor Powell. Logan Heftel and Katie
Speaker 1: mcmurran provided the sound design with assistance from j. C.
Speaker 1: Swaddick and Jake blue Note. Alec Cowen is our associate producer,
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Katz was our story editor. Fact checker is
Speaker 1: Alexa O'Brien, and thanks to Miles Gray, who produced the
Speaker 1: series for I Heart Radio. If you have any comments
Speaker 1: or questions, please reach out. You can find us on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I'm at Connor M. Powell and Gary is at Gary
Speaker 1: Robert Scott and if you have any stories about FIFA,
Speaker 1: let us know. If you like what you hear, please
Speaker 1: give us a shout out at the hashtag Lords of
Speaker 1: Soccer