Vol. 44 - Power to the Women, No Delay

On soccer and women's rights

I’m sitting here at the desk in my home office, scrambling to get my work done before the United States Men’s National Team kicks off against Iran in just over an hour.

For ninety minutes (and then a few undetermined extra), soccer will be at the fore. But some of the conversation surrounding this game—perhaps the most important in American men’s soccer history—will no doubt be about the controversy surrounding the two teams.

Over the weekend, in a none-too-subtle gesture, the United States Soccer Federation posted an image of Iran’s flag to its Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. The image displayed an altered flag which removed the nation’s Islamic Republic emblem, leaving only three horizontal stripes, blocks of red, white, and green to denote our men’s team’s opponent for the coming match.

The alteration was presented to show support for the women of Iran, who have been protesting since the September 16 death of 22-year-old Masha Amini at the hands of the country’s Guidance Police, a state-sanctioned morality body. In the months-long protests that have followed, another 450 people have been reported killed and over 18,000 arrested; both are almost certainly conservative numbers.

Tansim, Iran’s state-sanctioned media, lobbied FIFA via Twitter, demanding soccer’s governing body hit the American team with a ten-day match ban. Tansim’s tweets cited one of FIFA’s rules which states that any person who “offends the dignity or integrity of a country, a person or group of people ... shall be sanctioned with a suspension lasting at least ten matches or a specific period, or any other appropriate disciplinary measure.”

On Sunday, US Soccer replaced the image with the correct flag but said they would continue to stand in support of the women in Iran.

“Clearly the decision we made was to show support for the women in Iran," a United States Soccer Federation spokesperson told The Athletic. “That stands.”

Good for them. It’s great that United States Soccer are using their massive platform to promote a righteous fight for human rights. But as I watched this whole thing play out over the weekend, I couldn’t help but think of the years our women’s team fought tooth and nail to be paid what they deserve (which, in this writer’s opinion, given the successes they’ve had and the lives of girls and young women across the country they’ve impacted, is still not enough), to be paid equally to our men’s team.

And earlier this year, after a battle that lasted more than half a decade, the women of American soccer—arguably the greatest program in the history of international team sports—finally won that fight.

But our men had their chance a few years ago to support women right here at home, to stand up for and to stand beside our women and demand they be paid equally. The men representing our nation on the soccer field had years to publicly have the backs of the women doing so. Yet for years, they stood silent while their counterparts were stonewalled time and time again, demanding what was rightfully theirs.

The men’s team spoke, eventually, but only after years of silence, years of pressure, and years of our women fighting their fight by and for themselves.

And to be clear, this is admittedly and very much an apples-to-oranges comparison. The American women fought for equal pay. Women in Iran are fighting for their lives.

Of course, as we’ve been told time and again throughout this tournament, this is a different US men’s team than those of years past. This team is younger, fresher, newer than the staid US Soccer teams of years past. This team is full of Gen-Zers who no doubt have very different worldviews from the generations before them. But something else that’s changed is how now the United States Soccer Federation is helmed by a woman.

In March 2020, on the heels of the resignation of US Soccer head Carlos Cordeiro, former USWNT player Cindy Parlow Cone was named President of US Soccer. This March, she was reelected to another four-year term.

Whether Ms. Parlow Cone was behind the decision to remove the image from Iran’s flag, to stand so publicly in support of women on the other side of the world, I do not know. What I do know is that in the two years since she’s been running the USSF, our women’s team won their long fight for equal pay and our men finally came out publicly in support of them. And now, this very public, very politically fraught show of solidarity with the women of Iran. As a soccer fan and a proud American, not to mention a father to a daughter (though one needn’t be as much to advocate for women’s rights), I’m glad to see the US Men’s National Team finally stepping up.

Whenever the Women’s World Cup rolls around, I watch with pride, honored that our nation is represented by the likes of strong, courageous women like Megan Rapinoe, Kristine Lilly, Abby Wambach, Becky Sauerbrunn, Alex Morgan, and, of course, Mia Hamm.

I can’t say I’ve ever felt that way about our men’s team. But maybe this young, fresh, new squad can change that. Maybe they can give me a reason beyond the simple fact that their jersey has my flag on it to say, “That’s my team.”