Top world class women's players have filed a law suit in Canada at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. The suit is led by U.S. forward Abby Wambach. along with U.S. teammate Alex Morgan, Germany’s Nadine Angerer, Brazil’s Fabiana Da Silva Simoes and Spain’s Veronica Boquete.
The women claim that playing the sport’s premier tournament on fake grass amounts to gender discrimination under Canadian law. Their male counterparts have ALWAYS played the World Cup on natural grass surfaces and will for the foreseeable future. The players say there is a greater risk of injury on turf, and the artificial surface impacts both how the game is played and how the ball moves.
It is an equal rights issue as the Men's World Cup would NEVER be even considered to play on artificial turf. FIFA and the Canadian Origanizers could easily use some of there huge profits from television contracts to place sod over the artificial turf fields as has been done numerous times for men's games in the United States, most notably this summer at Michigan Stadium for the game between Man United and Real Madrid. While not ideal, is it is still far superior than the artifial turf alternative.
“Is it going to cost them a little bit of money? Yeah. Maybe a drop in the bucket for FIFA for the amount of money that they have,” U.S. player Megan Rapinoe said last month. “It just seems like they’re kind of like, ‘Oh, yeah, whatever, this is just what you’re going to have.’ When there’s an alternative option, that’s frustrating.”
