DID YOU KNOW PUERTO RICO HAS A WOMEN’S FOOTBALL TEAM?

Women’s Association Football, known as women’s football or women’s soccer is the team sport of association when played by women’s teams only. It is played by 176 national teams in-ternationally. Women’s football has faced many struggles throughout its history. This history has seen major competitions at both the national and international levels. The Football Association initiated a ban in 1921 in England that disallowed women’s football games from taking place on the member club grounds. This ban remained in effect until July 1971.  Since then, the sport for women has slowly gained popularity.

Overview: In 1972 the United States Congress passed the Title IX legislation as a part of the additional Amendment Act to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.[21] Title IX states that: “no person shall on the basis of sex, be excluded from participating in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance…”; in other words, this law from the Education Act requires that both male and female athletes have equal facilities and equal benefits.  Professional sports refers to sports in which athletes are paid for their performance. The pay for women’s professional sports is significantly lower than for men’s, a phenomenon known as the “gender pay gap”. Not only do female athletes themselves face inequality, but so too do women looking to enter the business side of sports. Although several professional women’s sports leagues have been established throughout the world in the post-Title IX era, they are behind in terms of exposure, funding, and attendance compared to the men’s teams. The 1990s saw greater participation mainly due to the Title IX of 23 June 1972, which increased school’s budgets and their addition of women’s scholarships.

Due to the lack of exposure, many do not know of Puerto Rican women’s contribution and progress in many fields. Despite this and many other obstacles, we now have the talented Puerto Rican Women’s Football winning team. The Puerto Rico women’s football team is governed by the Puerto Rican Football Federation. Women may have been playing football for as long as the game has existed. It was not until 2008 (87 years later), that the FA issued an apology for banning women from the game of football