Playing sport at the highest level is a dream. To do so as a professional or to represent your country, county or club is something that everybody would love to do and which everybody who sees it from the outside would look on as being one of the best things you could do in life.
The view from the inside can be different though. And difficult because everyone tells you what a brilliant life you have and how ‘if only..’
The ongoing row between the players of the Republic of Ireland Senior Women’s Team and the FAI is unfortunate in many ways but it can and will be resolved to make the set up for Women’s soccer, and the sport in general as a result, better.
It’s unfortunate because it steals whatever oxygen of publicity there may have been on the U19 team playing an elite qualification group for their European Championships in Limerick.
They wil get by by doing what they do, giving their all and playing the game they have grown up with. Last night they lost to an injury time penalty but they have two more games left to make it to the Finals this summer in Northern Ireland.
Platform
It’s unfortunate because it gives a platform to those intentional or mainly unintentional misogynists who point to pictures of empty seats and say sure nobody follow’s them, they’re no good and why are they any different to a local men’s five a side team. They don’t get tracksuits and wifi either.
These self styled commentators hardly deserve a response but they need to be pointed out that the Women’s Champions League attendance at last week’s Quarter Final stage climbed from 38,000 12 months ago to 55,000. Everything is about progression and women’s football is progressing faster than most at the vanguard of women’s sport in general.
It is unfortunate because it allows people to turn it all into a question of John Delaney’s salary and ambition for higher office. It’s not and Emma Byrne said that straight at yesterday’s press conference.
It is about respect for elite athletes who are representing their country and who deserve to be given what they need to do that to the best of their ability and to encourage those coming behind to keep pulling on their boots and going out on muddy pitches because they too, one day could be an Aine O’Gorman, Stephanie Roche or Louise Quinn.
Too often in life things need to be brought to a head in order to make them better. Yes of course it is better that preventative action and holistic care is taken all the way through but sometimes stuff gets in the way and can only be removed by a swift kick.
Give and take
The ‘stuff’ in the way of this is the unwillingness of the FAI to sit down with the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland. It’s a basic workplace dispute the likes of which are also being played out at Bus Eireann and which are only ever resolved through a little give and take on both sides.
We spoke to a number of players and those involved yesterday and there is a desire to just get this out of the way and play not only Monday’s friendly at Tallaght Stadium but to a level that will generate qualification for major tournaments in the same way as the men’s team.
The FAI feel that they have genuinely been moving forward in relation to the Women’s team. They have stepped up massively on their promotion of the Women’s game through their own media and appear fully willing to make the conditions the players operate under better.
Direct payments may still be an issue but ways can be found to make that right.
The Women’s National team has played 14 matches in the past 12 months. They won 6, drew 1 and lost 7. Based on the claim of €300 match fee, €150 win bonus and €75 draw bonus, all of which look modest, and based on a squad of 25 players that would mean a cash call on the FAI of €129,375 over the course of a year.
That seems crazy in comparison to the mad, mad world of professional soccer where Robbie Keane alone would have earned that in 12 days over the last two years of his playing contract with LA Galaxy.
Fitful
On other matters such as nutrition and strength and conditioning there is a breakdown between the two parties. The FAI believes there has been progress. The players see what has been done as fitful and almost of no consequence.
These are the areas where discussion can resolve differences and lead both to a better place, even if it is not exactly where they say they can go or have to be.
This is a big test for the Head of Women’s Football Sue Ronan who is only months into the job and is now signing letters to players who she has seen come through as manager of the National team and doubtless forged a pretty special bond. Her Chair of the Women’s Committee Niamh O’Donoghue is one of the country’s leading public servants and will deal with tougher problems than this at the Department of Social Welfare before we have had a cup of coffee this morning.
The players do not feel they have the competence in negotiation to best represent their interests and those of women’s football. They should be allowed to have representatives around the table who know the value of a settlement and who can speak with fire and brimstone on the steps of Liberty Hall but who can sit and cut a deal once the door has closed.
The men’s team used BDO and the skilled representative Ciaran Medlar to negotiate their player pool arrangements ahead of the Euro’s last year. There is more money in the men’s game and hence more interest from the commercial world in getting involved in negotiation but if a middle ground has to be found perhaps he would give over time to get this resolved.
Mediation
Sport for Business has long been an advocate of the advance of Women’s Sport but we also work with the FAI on smart initiatives which they have to make the game stronger. We would happily step in as a mediator, having worked in the realm of industrial relations in the past and realising it is not what is said that is most important on the road to a settlement but what is agreed.
There has been reference to Saipan in relation to this dispute. It’s been covered mostly by football media so that is understandable.
It is closer though to the trip to Pau of the Women’s Rugby Team in 2012. 27 hours of planes, trains and automobiles which brought simmering elements of the treatment of the team in comparison to the men to the fore.
Action was taken, within eighteen months the team, fully prepared, were competing in a World Cup semi final. This summer Ireland will host the Women’s World Cup.
It could have happened without Pau but maybe that was the spark that made everyone sit down to get things done better.
Maybe yesterday’s press conference was what was needed to do likewise in football. Maybe it will be seen as a defining moment on how things got back on an even keel and moved to a better place.
