Women’s sports don’t really matter, do they?

I mean, at least that’s the message I get every four years when the FIFA Women’s World Cup runs around, and almost no one is talking about it. 

Back home, “important” soccer matches have always been treated with priority. Matches determine which restaurant we can go eat at (it needs to have a TV that’s playing said match), or how long we stay out that day (we need to be back home for the match). I even remember a year where watch parties for the FIFA World Cup matches were organized at my school during class time by the teachers. 

Guess what was never deemed important enough by anyone to make sure the restaurant had a TV playing it? What was never played at big watch parties at school? Guess what we didn’t even watch? 

Women’s soccer was never a thing in my house. To the point that I wasn’t even aware that there was also a Women’s World Cup until a lot later in life. 

And yes, I know that soccer is not as big a thing in the United States the way it is in Mexico or Germany, or some other countries. But that in and of itself makes everything worse once you consider that the U.S. team is one of the best in the world. 

The point is that Women’s soccer is generally looked down upon. The Women’s soccer teams make significantly less money than men’s teams. I mean, it even goes to things like Prince William deciding not to attend the England v. Spain final in person, in spite of being president of the Football Association.

At the end of the day, the issues we see in Women’s soccer are just a microcosm of the bigger issues women still face everywhere. And just like in every other area, there has been progress: the U.S. team reached an equal-pay agreement in 2022, the 2023 Women’s World Cup saw record-breaking viewership and FIFA’s prize award for the tournament was raised to three times what it was the previous Women’s World Cup.

Still, if anything, the 2023 Women’s World Cup showed that we still have a long way to go.

As the national team of Spain was celebrating their medal ceremony for winning the World Cup, Luis Rubiales, the head of the Royal Spanish Football Federation kissed Jenni Hermoso, one of the players, without her consent. Additionally, he was seen grabbing his crotch during the celebration of the win.

Both these acts led to multiple people to call for Rubiales’ resignation, including the Spanish minister. However, in an emergency meeting of the soccer federation, he refused to resign and made excuses for his behavior.

In that meeting, the coach of Spain’s team, Jorge Vilda clapped at the end of Rubiales’ speech. The coach also expressed his belief that this incident of the kiss was “nonsense” and a distraction from the team's victory.

Both Rubiales and Vilda are starting to face consequences for their actions. And even though Rubiales has only been temporarily suspended so far, he will be facing legal charges after Hermoso filed a legal complaint against him. 

Vilda, on the other hand, has been fired and replaced as head coach of the Spain team. In his place, Montse Tomé has been appointed the new coach, making her the first woman to hold that position.

This all came after the women’s team issued a statement demanding real structural change and for a change of leadership. In this letter, which was signed by the team’s football players, the soccer team declared that they won’t be playing as long as the current leaders of the Royal Spanish Football Federation continue in their positions.

While the appointment of Tomé is proof that we are headed in the right direction, it is bittersweet that it took a man’s failure on an international level for a woman to get the chance to lead Spain’s soccer team. It is also difficult to ignore that Rubiales, who was the main aggressor in this case, is yet to face any consequences and is just temporarily suspended for now.

Everything that is currently happening with the women’s soccer team goes to show how far we’ve come in our fight for equality, but it is also a marker of how far we still have to go. 

In the end, it turns out women’s sports matter a lot more than I even realized.