'It’s taken 20 years for us to be able to even say we’re at a tipping point for women’s soccer,' says Julie Foudy, who was on the U.S. national team when they won the '99 World Cup title. (via WBUR)
It started in December 1995. The team was in Chula Vista, California training for the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. It was the first time women would play soccer at the Olympics. And nine of the team’s top players weren’t at camp. They were locked out in a contract dispute. One of them was Kristine Lilly.Led by co-captains Julie Foudy and Carla Overbeck, the nine players spoke frequently via conference call.
"We'd get our tickets, and everyone’s like, ‘Who’s in the middle?’ And everyone would raise their hand," Lilly remembers."Right down the middle of the plane is all of us sitting there. And you could see, 'cause we’re all in the same colored shirts." He says the Federation had virtually no money, but they’d scraped together enough for a training camp and small per diems to help the women prepare for the 1991 tournament.
Following Ellen Zavian’s advice, Foudy, Lilly and their teammates crossed out the contested clauses, then faxed their contracts back to U.S. Soccer. In response, U.S. Soccer cancelled their invitations to the Chula Vista training camp. The Federation didn’t know it, but Zavian says the lockout was part of her plan.
The Olympic gold put soccer on the national map — along with women’s sports. The U.S. was scheduled to host the next Women’s World Cup, in 1999. FIFA wanted to play the matches in small stadiums and just in the Northeast. But Alan Rothenberg and the Federation stepped up big. But even with a woman as the face of American soccer, the Federation poured most of its resources into the men's team, which lost all three of its matches at the 1998 World Cup.
After their World Cup victory in 1999, the U.S. women found their own sponsor and started planning their own victory tour. Twelve matches in 12 U.S. cities. The players, some of whom earned just $9,000 a year from U.S. Soccer, would pocket hefty bonuses.
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