The media have provided saturation coverage over the past few weeks of the endemic corruption that has attended the selection process for the FIFA Men’s World Cup. Media executives would probably cite -- without a hint of irony -- the reputational damage this coverage caused as their reason for providing such scant coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, which got underway in Canada on Saturday.
It’s also possible that they’re taking their cues from FIFA’s executive committee. After all, this committee is composed of 23 men and just 1 woman. What's more, its president (the disgraced Sepp Blatter) once famously remarked -- again without a hint of irony -- that international soccer (for men and women) is “too macho” for women to govern. But I digress…
The truth, of course, is that media coverage of the women’s tournament has never amounted to more than a fraction of the men’s. Never mind that no amount of coverage of the women’s on this occasion would be sufficient to clean up the mess men have made of FIFA.
To be fair, CNN ran a June 8 report, titled “Why You Should Be Watching the Women’s World Cup,” which included this emasculating dig at the men’s game:
The women play with a hunger that million-dollar prima donnas (read: Ronaldo) just can't always muster.
That report also mentioned the can’t-miss opportunity to watch Marta (aka Pele in a skirt) play in what is likely her last chance to win a Women’s World Cup for Brazil. Her goal in Tuesday’s opening match earned her the distinction of scoring more goals (at 15) than any other player in Women’s World Cup history.
Unfortunately, CNN ran this report on its website, which only about a thousand news junkies -- most of whom probably have no interest in men's or women's soccer -- ever bother to read.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media are doing so little to promote this Women’s World Cup that superstar players, led by Abby Wambach of the USA, are using FIFA’s social media campaign, #LiveYourGoals, to drum up interest. Never mind that, if you were to google “the World Cup,” you’d be hard-pressed to figure out that there’s a women’s version of this quadrennial tournament…
And don’t get me started on the scheduling conflict with the Copa América, which gets underway in Chile today. After all, this tournament will feature the best South American teams with some of the best players in the world, including Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Brazil’s Neymar. So which tournament do you think media executives are going to cover?
Frankly, this conflict is tantamount to scheduling the NBA and WNBA playoffs for the same time and leaving it to sexist media executives to decide which to cover.
As it happens, the way these executives think was on full display yesterday, when commentators on ESPN's most popular talk show, First Take, spent ninety percent of their time gabbing about what happened in game 3 of the NBA Finals, and the other ten percent speculating about the NFL season, which does not even get underway until late-August. Conspicuously, though, they uttered not a single word about the Women's World Cup -- an oversight made all the more egregious given that female Cari Champion is the host of this show.
Apropos of which, let me hasten to clarify that such unequal and unfair coverage of women’s sports is not limited to Soccer. In fact, the discrepancy between media coverage of men and women’s Basketball is such that I felt compelled to share this lament six years ago:
Instead of commanding network coverage in primetime, like the men’s championship, the women’s was relegated to cable last night, which guaranteed only a fraction of the viewership. Yet the TV executives who are responsible for dissing women’s college Basketball in this fashion are the very ones who wonder why they can’t get better ratings for the fledgling women’s professional league -- the WNBA.
Moreover, what does all of this say to female college athletes, as well as to young girls who we encourage to have the same interest in sports as young boys…? Frankly, it says that male chauvinism, sexism, and discrimination against women in sports not only still exist but are blithely tolerated.
Sorry girls…
(“NCAA Women’s Championship,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 8, 2009)
Incidentally, tennis is the only big-time sport where women enjoy parity in media coverage. Granted, it helps that Serena Williams -- who won her 20th Grand Slam at the French Open last weekend -- is easily the most exciting tennis player in the world to watch, male or female. With more media coverage I suspect fans would soon see female Soccer and Basketball players who are every bit as exciting to watch as Cristiano Ronaldo and Steph Curry, respectively.
Of course, if the USA were to make it to the final match in this World Cup, the U.S. media would be all too happy to stoke public interest with jingoistic reports. By the same token, if the USA were eliminated early, this same media would be all too happy to frame its failure as a national tragedy — the like of which not seen since the ‘Dream Team” had to settle for bronze in Men’s Basketball at the 2004 Athens Olympics. For now, though, the media seem only interested in creating distractions for the USA by rehashing stories about the domestic violence that has made goalie Hope Solo, the team's only indispensable player, the Ray Rice of women’s soccer.
Having said all that, I’m not even rooting for the USA. Not to mention that Germany is looking so invincible, having already demolished Côte d'Ivoire 10-0 in their opening match on Sunday, it might emulate Germany’s win in last summer’s Men’s World Cup in Brazil. I am a perennial cheerleader for the underdog; therefore, I’m rooting for Cameroon. But Soccer experts aren’t even giving my team a snowball’s chance in hell of winning -- with headlines like “Cameroon Aren’t Contenders Yet, But They’re On Their Way,” Deadspin, June 4, 2015. Which is why Cameroon must have shocked the world on Monday, when it won its opening match against Ecuador, in Germany-like fashion, 6-0.
I’m also rooting for Cameroon because a World Cup win would brighten things just a little for my benighted, beleaguered and besieged comrades across the Dark Continent of Africa. With all due respect to powerhouse Nigeria, Cameroon is a far better ambassador for the continent these days (for what I trust are obvious reasons).
Anthony L. Hall is a Bahamian who descends from the Turks and Caicos Islands. He is an international lawyer and political consultant - headquartered in Washington DC - who also publishes a current events weblog, The iPINIONS Journal, at http://ipjn.com
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