U.S. Soccer is making contingency plans for a pair of friendlies that are scheduled next week for the United States women’s national team.
The opponent for the third and fourth Victory Tour matches is slated to be Australia. However, the Matildas are currently on strike as they seek better compensation from Football Federation Australia. That has put a big question mark around the Sept. 17 game (live, FS1, FOX Sports Go, 7 p.m. ET) in Detroit and the Sept. 20 game in Birmingham.
According to U.S. Soccer officials, who had not been officially notified about the Matildas pullout as reported earlier this week, the games will almost certainly go on. As of Wednesday, U.S. Soccer said it is consulting with other CONCACAF teams to find a replacement, should the Australian women be officially taken off the schedule. So far, U.S. Soccer has not confirmed Australia’s withdrawal.
The U.S. women are celebrating their 2015 Women’s World Cup win with a 10-match Victory Tour across the U.S.. The first pair of friendlies were against Costa Rica. Las Ticas sent a very young squad and proved an easy opponent for the U.S. women, who gave big crowds of fans a thrill in Pittsburgh and Chattanooga.
However, Australia is a major step up in competition and would give the U.S. women a much tougher pair of games. The Matildas had a terrific Women’s World Cup campaign, as well, advancing out of the Group of Death with the U.S. women and Nigeria and then winning their first knockout round game against Brazil. The Aussies fell to Japan in the quarterfinals, but not before proving the squad has made significant gains in the past few years.
It’s tough to imagine that any other opponent that U.S. Soccer can rustle up on such short notice would provide U.S. coach Jill Ellis with the level of competition that the Aussies would bring. But as the U.S. women experienced in previous years, success on the field sometimes must be used in tough collective bargaining negotiations. The success of the Aussies during the World Cup, plus their increased popularity back home, has been the catalyst for this current strike for better wages.
In a statement from Professional Footballers Australia, Matildas’ goalie Lydia Williams said the Aussie women have made an “extremely difficult decision” but the full team is in support.
“It’s simply unfair to continue to expect us to make enormous sacrifices to play for Australia.” Williams said. “For the past two months the players have been unpaid and have made every attempt to reach an agreement that gives the women’s game a platform for growth. This is about the future of Australian football.”
Williams added: “We want to establish football as the sport of choice for Australian women, and we want to be one of the best nations in the world. FFA’s stance indicates that they do not share these ambitions, nor do they understand and respect what we have given to the game. We are simply asking FFA do their bit so we can grow the game together.”
The U.S. women have fought these battles in previous years and currently, U.S. players make upwards of $230,000 for playing on the U.S. national team. For the Matildas, full-time contracts are about $21,000. The players union and FFA have been in contract talks for about six months, but have yet to reach a collective bargaining agreement.
In Australia, the fallout keeps coming, making it unlikely these issues can be resolved in time for next week’s friendlies between the U.S. and the Matildas. FFA CEO David Gallop criticized the group for blindsiding them with unreasonable requests. The men’s league were also asking for pay increases of $1,000 per standard game.
“We were presented with a fresh set of demands that amount to millions of dollars of unfunded commitments,” Gallop said. “It’s sad that the Matildas have been dragged into a dispute that’s primarily about the A-League. The offer to the Matildas would basically double their pay over the next four years.”
