Matildas pay deal brings out the chaunvinists who miss big picture
Matildas players have a message for the vocal minority of chauvinists who are up in arms over a groundbreaking deal that guarantees them the same pay as their Socceroos counterparts.
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Matildas midfielder Elise Kellond-Knight said she had “read more chauvinistic remarks in one hour than I have in my whole life” after The Daily Telegraph broke the news that the Australian women’s team is to be paid the same as the men’s.
“We work as hard as the men, we deserve an equal opportunity. Thanks to those in support of today’s news!” she tweeted.
It‘s certainly a development that has caused some starkly opposed reactions, judging by comments on both the article itself and on social media. A vocal minority seem offended by the idea that the men and women representing Australia should be paid equally.
“This agreement has been collective. The Socceroos have been completely on board this entire process,” Kellond-Knight of the deal, in which Australia’s men’s footballers accepted the revenue sharing model which guarantees top-tier Matildas playing in the A-League a minimum $100,000 a year going forward.
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That’s despite the fact that the proportion of major sports renumerating its athletes differently by gender has steadily fallen in recent years. Football remains the sport with the biggest gender gap, and that won’t change any time soon when the bulk of that money is tied to individual commercial endorsements.
But the concept that two international teams playing the same sport, playing a similar number of games and travelling similar distances to do so should be paid equally seems to have offended a vocal minority.
“So if people from the outside externally want to have negative opinions about it, that’s their opinion. It doesn’t really affect anything,” Kellond-Knight said.
The fact that the Matildas have lost on a couple of occasions to U-15 boys teams in the past three years is held up as the prime example of why men are better than women and should be paid more. But it’s a curious argument when the whole point of the Matildas is to excel against other women.
Occasionally they play training games against teenage boys because of the difficulty in finding appropriate opposition to prepare against, especially here in Australia. Sports scientists will tell you that beyond that age, the physiological differences become too great, and it’s a pointless exercise.
Rather more relevantly, Matildas have made the final of the last four Asian Cups, winning it in 2010. They reached the quarterfinals of the last Olympics, going out on penalties. Before losing in the Round of 16 at this year’s World Cup, they had reached the quarterfinals of the previous three.
That’s more successful than the Socceroos, but that’s not the point either. Both the men and women’s national teams are striving to be successful in their field, and are paid for their efforts to do so.
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Those who would argue that the worth of the national teams should be viewed through the prism of the commercial benefits they generate might want to look to America, where the US women’s team is more successful than the men’s, makes more in commercial income, sells more tickets … and is paid less.
One of the most important words used at the launch of Australia’s the new pay deal on Tuesday was “investment”. Historically women’s teams reflect the relative lack of investment in their high-performance capabilities, in the marketing of them and consequently in the commercial attention paid to them.
The Socceroos and FFA have decided that they believe the Matildas should be paid equally as an investment in their future.
Originally published as Matildas pay deal brings out the chaunvinists who miss big picture
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