The FIFA women’s World Cup down there in Australia and New Zealand is not merely an example of fabulous sporting theatre, it’s also a stark reminder of the contrasting cultures in elite-level football.
For one thing, the women play a much more honest brand of futbol than the men. That is to say, they spend more time frolicking on their feet rather than on their backsides, gyrating as if they’re giving birth to 10 pounds of barbed wire.
Oh, sure, flopping is part of female footy, too, but when we see a player supine on the pitch there’s a high likelihood that she’s actually wounded, not Meryl Streeping in the hope of hoodwinking a referee into a red card or maybe even an Oscar nomination. (See 2011 Wake Forest study re female and male soccer players diving.)
But fake-injury time isn’t the main point of separation between the women’s and men’s games. Sexuality is.
According to the folks who track such things at the website Outsports, 94 of the 736 players (12.7 per cent) getting their kicks Down Under are LGBT(etc.), and that’s likely a low number because the tally doesn’t include those in the closet. Twenty-two of the 32 sides feature at least one out player, with the co-hosting Matildas leading the way at 10 and Ireland and Brazil right behind at nine apiece.
Our Canadian side includes out players Kadeisha Buchanan, Quinn and Kailen Sheridan, plus Bev Priestman, one of two gay coaches.
Now consider the men’s World Cup.
Number of out gay men at Qatar in 2022: Nil. Number of out gay men at any of the 22 World Cup tournaments: Nil.
I suppose we could say this is all much ado about nil, because a player’s sexual orientation isn’t noted on a game sheet and no one wins the Golden Boot based on clicks on a dating app. Except that misses the point, which speaks to where we are in team sports 23-plus years into the 21st century.
It’s no secret that female athletes are comfortable in their own skin. The WNBA is the clubhouse leader on the inclusion file, with estimates of gay players ranging from 20 to 50 per cent. Connecticut Sun stars Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner announced their engagement on Friday. Meantime, soccer and hockey aren’t lagging far behind. Canada’s gold-medal winning shinny side at the 2022 Olympics, for example, included nine lesbians—Brianne Jenner, Erin Ambrose, Emily Clark, Melodie Daoust, Jill Saulnier, Jamie Lee Rattray, Micah Zandee-Hart, and two who became engaged in May, Laura Stacey and captain Marie-Philip Poulin. Meantime, the Yankee Doodle Damsels who won the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France featured half a dozen out gays—Tierna Davidson, Adrianna Franch, Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger, Kelley O’Hara and captain Megan Rapinoe, who’s engaged to WNBA legend Sue Bird.
“Go gays. You can’t win a championship without gays on your team. It’s never been done before, ever,” is how American captain Rapinoe put it during her fabulous French journey to a fourth WC title.
It’s to the point whereby a gay female athlete need not out herself. It’s dog-bites-man stuff. Nothing to see. Let’s move on.
The men, on the other hand…well, homosexuality remains a major bugaboo. You know, that scary thing that goes bump in the night.
Gay men continue to make their mark in most segments of society, but not major team sports. Go ahead and scan the landscape. The out gay man in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and MLS is as scarce as belly laughs in a graveyard. Carl Nassib is a football player without a team, and Luke Prokop is a Nashville Predators prospect who might one day defy the longest of odds and actually become the first openly gay player—ever!—to wear an NHL jersey. That’s it. Two gay guys, one who’s been to the show and the other a wide-eyed wannabe.
So why the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus dynamic in elite team sports?
Well, people with egg-shaped heads have spent considerable time studying that very issue, and there doesn’t appear to be a one-size-fits-all conclusion.
One theory holds that young straight men remain tethered to the antiquated notion that gay equals lesser-than, and that the mere existence of a gay guy on the roster would up-end the apple cart (Tony Dungy called it a “distraction”), thus making on-field success an extremely remote, also illogical, likelihood.
But would Argentina have been less likely to win the 2022 men’s World Cup had there been an openly out gay sharing the pitch and changing room with Lionel Messi and the straight guys? We can only speculate, but we do know that the LA Galaxy became lords of Major League Soccer with Robbie Rogers on the pitch and in the changing room in 2014. So what’s to fear?
The abundance of successful LGBT(etc.) players on the distaff side of the playground is the strongest indicator that a mix of gays and straights is doable. They work in concert and lift championship trophies together, not to mention pad their bank accounts with playoff coin.
Yet, despite overwhelming evidence, that remains a foreign concept among the men, even as studies tell us a majority of gays who come out experience a favorable reception from teammates. So why is it that gay male athletes are still considered poisonous fruit best kept out of sight? If they truly believed it was safe to come out, wouldn’t we be seeing them?
Perhaps it really is as simple as the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus thing.
Whatever the case, I don’t expect to see a men’s World Cup featuring 94 out LGBT(etc.) players in my lifetime, but it would be nice if the guys would learn the lessons of Venus and, even better, live in the same century.
If Canada doesn’t win Down Under, my World Cup rooting interests shift to these countries, in this order:
Ireland…What can I say? I’m Irish.
Sweden…Never met a Swede I didn’t like.
England…It’s a Commonwealth thing.
Brazil…Big fan of Marta.
Australia…Matildas have the most gay players.
Attendance for the first three days of the women’s World Cup of soccer:
42,137 Eden Park, Auckland (record for New Zealand futbol).
75,784 Stadium Australia, Sydney (record for Aussie female futbol).
21,410 Melbourne Rectangular Stadium.
13,711 Dunedin Stadium, NZ.
22,966 Wellington Regional Stadium, NZ.
41,107 Eden Park.
16,111 Waikato Stadium, Hamilton, NZ.
44,369 Brisbane Stadium, AU.
16,989 Perth Rectangular Stadium.
18,317 Wellington Regional Stadium.
But, hey, they say nobody wants to watch women’s sports (whoever “they” are).
America’s talk-a-lot forward, the blue-haired Megan Rapinoe, plans to hang up her futbol boots and live happily ever after with the lady in her life, Sue Bird, after the World Cup and National Women’s Soccer League season. Does that mean she’ll finally shut the hell up?
Actually, I’ve usually found myself nodding in agreement with much of Rapinoe’s blah, blah, blah over the years, so I’d rather she doesn’t take a vow of silence once the cheering has stopped.
Here’s Damien Cox of the Toronto Star on our soccer side reaching the top step of the medal podium at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo: “It was the first time a Canadian women’s team had won gold at the Summer Games in any sport.” D’oh! Our female rowers (eights) struck gold seven days before our female footballers, and it wasn’t a “first.” Here’s a list of earlier gold medal-winning outfits:
2020: Susanne Grainger, Lisa Roman, Chrstine Roper, Sydney Payne, Madison Mailey, Kasia Gruchalla-Wesierski, Avalon Wasteneys, Andrea Proskie and Kristen Kit (cox) – rowing, women’s eight.
1996: Marnie McBean and Kathleen Heddle – rowing, women’s double sculls.
1992: Kathleen Heddle and Marnie McBean – rowing, women’s pairs.
Kay Worthington, Kirsten Barnes, Jessica Monroe and Brenda Taylor – rowing, women’s coxless fours.
Marnie McBean, Kathleen Heddle, Kirsten Barnes, Brenda Taylor, Jessica Montroe, Kay Worthington, Megan Delehanty, Shannon Crawford and Lesley Thompson – rowing, women’s eights with coxswain.
1988: Carolyn Waldo and Michelle Cameron – synchronized swimming, women’s duet.
1928: Ethel Smith, Bobbie Rosenfeld, Myrtle Cook, Jane Bell – athletics, women’s 4×100 metre relay.
I’m not sure what part of “team” Cox fails to understand, but apparently he would have us believe that two-to-eight women pulling oars in unison doesn’t qualify as a “team.” Ditto two women sync swimming or four women foot racing. It boggles the mind.
On the subject of teams, Ryan Dixon of Sportsnet has delivered a Dog Days of Summer power rankings list for National Hockey League outfits, and he rates the Winnipeg Jets No. 24. “It’s almost easy to forget Winnipeg made the post-season this past year because it struggled for so long down the stretch and got bounced in five games by Vegas,” he writes. “Clearly it’s time to turn over a new leaf in Manitoba and while GM Kevin Cheveldayoff did well in the Dubois deal, it’s still seems like some tough days are ahead for this club.” The Jets won’t know tough until they no longer have Connor Hellebuyck in the blue paint to bail them out.
Interesting, also odd, that Dixon has the Toronto Maple Leafs listed at No. 4. I mean, don’t news snoops in the Republic of Tranna normally have the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup at this time of year?
Rory McIlroy says he’ll quit golf if LIV becomes the only tour available. Ya, and Joey Chestnut will stop pigging out on hot dogs if they aren’t Nathan’s.
Wasn’t it thoughtful of O.J. Simpson to take a break from his life’s mission of finding the real killers to explain what should be done with transgender athletes? I mean, what would the discussion be without input from a convicted felon whose rap sheet includes kidnapping, armed robbery and, oh ya, the murder of a woman? “It just isn’t fair,” is Simpson’s take on the transgender/female athlete issue. I’d say his concern for women is touching, if not admirable, except there’s that small matter of double homicide, one of the victims being his ex-wife, Nicole Brown. I fail to see what’s “fair” about murder, but perhaps the real killers can explain it to us once Simpson finds them on a golf course.
Let’s see, which notables have recently joined the “fairness” discussion as it relates to transgender females competing against biological females? Well, there’s Simpson, a convicted felon. There’s Lance Armstrong, a disgraced cyclist under a lifetime ban for being the biggest cheat in the history of pedal-pushing. And there’s Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender female full-score against the inclusion of transgender females in female sports, yet she competes in female golf tournaments. So we have a convict, a cheat and a hypocritical attention hog. It’s like getting Larry, Curly and Moe together for a panel chin-wag on quantum physics.
On the other side of that discussion is Charles Barkley, the NBA great who teed it up in a celebrity golf tournament at Lake Tahoe last week and popped into a pub to share some suds and thoughts with locals. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that the anti-transgender mob has boycotted Bud Light because Anheuser-Busch used Dylan Mulvaney to pitch its product. Well, Sir Charles is having none of that. “If you’re gay, God bless you. If you’re trans, God bless you. And if you have a problem with them (f–k) you. If you are gay, lesbian, transgender, live your f—–g life,” Sir Charles told patrons. He also bought them pints. Bud Light, naturally.
And, finally, Tony Bennett is dead. Damn. I love the man’s voice, his singing style, the joy he expressed when the band began to play. It would be a total bummer if not for the fact his voice and music play on. Tony Bennett is dead, long live Tony Bennett.
The River City Renegade 
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