Women’s Soccer Was Having a Moment. Then the Clock Stopped.

“We would go for official dinners with teams, with budgets 10 times the size of ours, who could not believe that our club was run by volunteers,” she said. She is used to working, and thriving, against the odds: having to be a better scout than professional scouts, having to be a better marketer than professional marketers.

Most of all, though, she knows that her soccer club is not just about soccer. “Our core message remains the same,” she said. “It is about equality, about championing girls and women, about objecting to objectification. That’s our unique identifier. That’s what we stand for.”

That appeals to brands, of course, but it also gives Glasgow City a purpose, regardless of the economic context. The club has been built, after all, on her passion, and on that of her players.

“We have a few who could have gone elsewhere and earned more money,” she said. “But they stayed because our values really resonate with them.”

Whatever challenges Glasgow City faces, whatever challenges women’s soccer faces, that passion, and those values, will not change.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/sports/soccer/womens-soccer-coronavirus-glasgow-city.html