Women's soccer and the Irish Diaspora

Abstract

Over 90,000 spectators and a worldwide TV audience watched the U.S. women's soccer team defeat China in a tense penalty shootout in Pasadena in the 1999 World Cup Final. Teams from 63 countries had competed for 16 places in the qualifying matches held at various stadiums across the U.S. The enormous popularity of this competition fuelled speculation that women's soccer, and in particular U.S women's soccer, had at last overcome its doubly marginal status as a minor, secondary distraction from the men's game and in the latter case as a foreign (Old World) import. The enthusiastic domestic response to the U.S team's victory demonstrated that women's soccer had at last won legitimacy, mass approval and the promise of lucrative sponsorships in the all‐important U.S market. In the atmosphere of post‐victory elation the possibility of a professional women's league became a topic for serious discussion in the U.S. media and a multi‐city indoor soccer tour was set up in the aftermath featuring players from the U.S. team versus a “rest of the world” selection.