COMMENTARY: Women’s soccer in US lacks diversity

The beginning of organized Women’s soccer in the US in the late 1970’s was partly due an outgrowth of the 1972 legislation mandating gender equity in education.

Title IX of these amendments mandated equal access and equal spending on athletic programs at colleges. But the creation and proliferation of women’s soccer in the U.S involved many stakeholders.

College soccer, the youth programs, amateur clubs, the national team, tournament success, the US Open Cup, farm clubs and finally a professional league.

The first national women’s league was not launch until 1995, and it was not until 2001 that the first professional women’s league made its debut. Today it is estimated that about 40% of soccer players (7.2 million) in the US women and girls. After two World Cup titles and Olympic gold and silver medals, the US almost dominates women’s soccer.

But the “politics of soccer” is not working for every American girl who wants to play the game at a higher and organized level.  U.S. soccer targets the middle class because it’s a pay-to-play system. There is money to be made- Transportation, fields, coaching, travel tournaments and camps.   Because of this financial barrier, American soccer has remained mainly a white suburban sport with a rich and privileged kid image. There’s no incentive for coaches and clubs to bring the game to the inner city, because poor people can’t afford to play.

According to coach Irvine Smalls of the FC Harlem Lions in N.Y City, ‘For soccer to grow in African-American communities, it needs an ambassador that kids connect with. The recently concluded Woman’s World Cup could have provided that opportunity, but none of the African-American players managed to get their names on the score sheet’.

But the fabulous U.S squad which lost on penalty kicks to Japan in the finals did not look like America. As I watch the championship game with my two soccer playing daughters, my feelings were bittersweet. Not only because of the defeat, but in a roster of 21 players there were only two Latinas and no Blacks or Asians. In the team picture of bright, young, exuberant and inspiring faces, the hues and shades of an increasingly multicultural America were quite limited.  There was something deeply amiss in the lack of diversity and pigmentation on the team.

Given soccer’s popularity, particularly in the Latino community, the lack of diversity cannot be excused.   By limiting the talent pool, is it any coincidence the United States has not completely dominated the world of women’s soccer?  But colleges, the U.S. soccer teams, and pro-soccer farm systems are bypassing the massive number of female and male players of color in soccer.  How it is that diversity in this sport has been whitewashed?

To increase the diversity of the U.S. teams—not only be truly America’s teams, but to ensure that U.S.  remains competitive—an all-out diversity effort must be launched. Not only for the sake of these marginalized communities, but also for sustained vitality of this great sport. First, more minority children must be enrolled in the largest soccer youth programs. Membership and tournament fees are out of reach for many working-class and poor minority families. The youth leagues must institute more scholarships and sliding-scale fees to accommodate players from lower socio-economic communities.

Also relationships and understanding by the coaches far beyond the fields must also be better understood. Many coaches do not know how to reconcile the differing expectations from minority parents when practice schedules conflict with work schedules at the family small store or awkward work schedules such as overtime.  The “no practice, no play” principle kills any nascent enthusiasm among working-class and immigrant kids and parents. The barriers to entry in the more competitive youth travel leagues are even higher. Exorbitant travel and tournament fees and faraway road games that assume parents have cars and free weekends to accompany their kids.

But the institutions that truly have no excuse for the lack of diversity on their soccer teams are colleges .Title IX, which demanded the playing field be evened out for collegiate women in terms of budgets, facilities and scholarships, is the No. 1 reason women’s sports in the U.S. have risen to the world-class caliber. But as in corporate America, women’s gains in soccer have unfortunately ended up being white women’s’ gains, with Black, Latina, Asian, and Native American women conspicuously absent as beneficiaries of powerfully important gender-diversity programs.

To break through, U.S. Soccer, college soccer scouts and parents must shift their assumptions and behaviors. Scouts need to get comfortable going into the barrio and inner-city schools and to suburbs dominated by immigrants and minorites, just as American football and basketball scouts started doing a generation ago. U.S. Soccer can up the ante by insisting that its scouts and coaches source greater diversity for players considered to be called on to wear the U.S. uniform.