'It’s our right to play. Women are no less than men in any aspect'

It was the boots that got her. Her team-mates were mending their boots with the kind of sewing kits you find in hotel rooms. Argentina’s goalkeeper Gaby Garton recalls her first day with the national team, and the patchworks of crude stitches hopscotching over each hole and tear and shoe. If this is going on with the national team, she thought, what about the clubs?

American-born Garton developed in the US college system where money is no object, but in those early years in South America – she has an Argentine mother – probably wondered where the problems would end. Not with the hand-me-downs from the men’s team, the matches cancelled because referees never showed, the boys’ teams that had priority over pitches and pushed women’s sides off at the eleventh hour, leaving Garton’s side scouring nearby parks or concrete spaces. Ahead of their most important match of the season, the bus never arrived. The team took taxis. Only the starting eleven made it on time.

Things are better, now — there has been a “movement” among players to lobby for change, Garton explains — but elsewhere the battle is just beginning.

Garton is one of 16 players from the men and women’s game, four of whom are speaking to Telegraph Sport, on Fifpro’s Global Player Council. Launched in January 2020, players will engage key stakeholders to safeguard the rights of players worldwide. Among them are Vincent Kompany, the Arsenal pair Kim Little and Jennifer Beattie, Lyon’s Saki Kumagai, Chelsea’s Anita Asante, England’s Jodie Taylor and Australia’s Elise Kellond-Knight. England’s Lucy Bronze is the most recent addition.

Fifpro’s latest report revealed that women internationals are contending with below-par facilities and that most players do not earn enough for a decent living. Of the elite players surveyed, 3.6 per cent do not receive money to play.

“You sit there and you think, well, in comparison to them, we’ve got it pretty good,” says England forward Taylor, whose OL Reign team-mate is Megan Rapinoe. “What am I complaining for? And then you realise: actually, no. The game will never change if you’re comparing yourself to what’s down. I don’t think that’s the mindset we need to have. We need to compare to where the men’s game is, how we can get closer. The only way to pull those at the bottom up is to keep improving at the top. I’ve had a mindset shift with that. It’s not about settling.”

A 2020 study from Griffith University found that female athletes are often so grateful to play professionally that they are exploited. The debt of thanks society forces on its female athletes – that they are lucky for any forward step – has been “part and parcel of the women’s game for generations”, says Chelsea defender Asante.

“Every progression we’ve made, there is this element of: ‘We are so fortunate, so grateful!’” she says. “A lot of the players absolutely are – but at the same time, it’s about changing that perspective, making people involved in the game understand that it’s our right to have this opportunity to play. Women are no less than men in any aspect.

“I think the biggest challenge we [WSL players] face at the moment is having contingency throughout the league, so that the level of resource is the same for all clubs. There’s a tendency to encapsulate a lot of teams into this idea of: ‘They’re professional – they should be able to perform. Why is this team good and this team not at that level?’ But it’s not the same across clubs. When it comes to salaries, the bare minimum could be £12,000 for the season. Suddenly, that’s categorised as professional. That’s not substantial enough for players to be able to commit 100 per cent effort into their craft and live with the pressures of daily life.”

In her early career, Taylor’s clubs trained just twice a week. She chose to focus on football rather than get a job elsewhere. “I relied heavily on my family. Like, hea-vi-ly.” She elongates each syllable. “I lived with my sister. Financially, there were a couple of solid years where, man, I struggled – just before I got into the England team.”

As a result, Taylor says, thoughts about the future of the game are “always in the background, always part of the motivation”. It has long been part of women’s football culture that female players feel duty-bound to give back.

“I don’t feel like we’re obliged to, but we fall into it,” reflects Kellond-Knight, a defensive midfielder at Brisbane Roar. “A certain type of personality stays in the women’s game. Combining everything — work, study, family, trying to be a full-time athlete — just doesn’t go. Mid-twenties, you look at your bank account, your life circumstances… You’re like, I can’t keep doing this. You question what keeps you in the game.

“Elite men getting paid hundreds of thousands wouldn’t have to deal with those life choices at that age. If I didn’t have the personality I did, it would have pushed me out of the game. You get this person that wants to contribute to society, wants to give back. I think in the men’s game, they don’t get filtered out.”

Asante tells me a story about the time Taylor took her by surprise at a recent football governance convention: a governing body representative was eulogising about Christine Sinclair, Canada’s all-time leading goalscorer, when Taylor pointed out that she was actually a product of the US college system, having left her home nation to find opportunities. Speaking to Taylor, several days later, gives the impression that she, too, was startled by the ease with which she found her own voice.

The hosts had briefed her, beforehand, on questions about the health of women’s football. “I had an answer prepared, then someone said how great the situation was in Canada,” Taylor remembers. “I knew the situation. Part of my answer was I think the perception of women’s football is getting better, but it doesn’t mean the conditions are great. I don’t think there were any bad intentions – I think they genuinely like women’s football – but it doesn’t mean that the right infrastructure is in place to support the game. It’s the difference between public perception of support and what support actually looks like.”

Coronavirus will test the infrastructure of women’s sport to its limit. Fifpro has already stressed that the pandemic poses an “existential threat” to women’s football.

“Don’t leave women’s football behind,” says Kellond-Knight. “I would stress to the world that you just can’t. You’ve got to pick it up like you’ve got to help your neighbour: take them shopping, buy them groceries if they’re a high-risk person. Same with women’s football. To leave us behind would be a bit of an insult.”

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