Wang Haolan

Holly_cn@163.com

TWO goals from American winger Megan Rapinoe and midfielder Rose Lavelle against the Netherlands Women’s Team embroidered the fourth star above the shield-shaped emblem of the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT), bringing an undoubtably massive end to the FIFA Women’s World Cup on Sunday.

Under the same shadow of Parc Olympique Lyonnais, where USWNT retained the gold in the final after winning the last tournament in Canada, the Orange Lionesses could expect a dignified return. The team has only qualified once for the World Cup, in 2015, and four years later, the side progressed to the final.

Dutch striker Vivianne Miedema, 22, who won the Golden Boot of the England Women’s Super League last season by scoring 22 goals for Arsenal, seamlessly transferred her goal-scoring form to the World Cup with three goals.

Like all the quadrennial soccer tournaments, this year’s Women’s World Cup also centered on winning, losing, the rise of the youth and the swansongs of the veterans. However, another catchphrase went viral among the players during this tournament — gender equality in soccer.

Resplendent with her neon-pink, smartly-trimmed hairdo, Rapinoe bagged the Golden Boot and the Golden Ball of the tournament, as well as the FIFA player of the match in the final, yet she continued making headlines in newspapers not only for those accolades.

The 34-year-old footballer fired at FIFA after the tournament for offering far less winnings to the winners of the Women’s World Cup than to that of the men’s tournament, and for the criticism towards the improper celebration of her teammate Alex Morgan, who mimicked drinking a cup of tea after scoring a goal against England in the semifinal.

No matter how much Rapinoe’s identity of a feminist biased her statement, she cast light on a to-be-reckoned-with truth. A prize of US$30m was awarded to USWNT for winning this year’s Women’s World Cup, while the prize for winning last year’s men’s tournament was US$400m.

The disparity in prize money is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the gender pay gap entrenched in professional soccer. A survey, which is carried out among the England Premier League teams and the Women’s Super League teams, shows that a professional women footballer in the top English leagues is paid at about 100 times less than a male player at the same level.

Fortunately, that is not the whole story, as this Women’s World Cup has reiterated the fact that women in soccer can also harness the same sportsmanship and commercial values as men do.

Statistics from both satellite and terrestrial television show that 6.1 million people tuned in to watch England beat Scotland 2-1 in a group match of the Women’s Football Cup on June 9, which was the highest figure recorded in the U.K. for a women’s soccer game.

One thing worth mentioning is that Lyon is a city well-deserved to host the final of the tournament, for its home soccer team, Olympique Lyonnais, has long served as a model for propelling gender equality in soccer by offering salaries commensurate with the skills of the top women players on the team.

China’s Women’s National Football team, runners-up in the 1999 Women’s World Cup and eight-time winners of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, has also received a pledge of over 1 billion yuan (US$145m) from Alipay to foster more talents like Wang Shuang, who just had a massive season with Paris Saint-Germain and played every game for China in this World Cup.

Mirrored by the tournament is the bittersweet situation of women’s soccer. Prejudices notwithstanding, the future is sure to be better.

After all, roses are always blooming from the thorns.