Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach Among Players to File Discrimination Suit vs. FIFA

Alex Morgan and Abby Wambach, two of America's most popular women's soccer players, filed a discrimination lawsuit in Canada on Wednesday against FIFA over playing the 2015 Women's World Cup on artificial turf.   

The suit was for discrimination over the playing conditions since no other major men's tournament has been played on artificial turf. Wambach spoke about the lawsuit, per CBS News:

"

That's not fair to the players ... About a year ago when we heard definitively that they were gonna be playing it on actual artificial surface, I kinda came out pretty vocally and said this is an outrage, this is a disgrace. The game changes, the ball rolls faster, and it's less fun as an athlete. It should be grass stains, not blood.

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Rick Westhead of TSN had a timeline for FIFA's response to the suit:

Turf has been used sparsely for soccer matches, including a recent U-20 Women’s World Cup in Canada. There is also currently a petition about the issue, with one of the main concerns being female soccer players being "given the respect they deserve."  

One recent issue that came to light was the injuries sustained by soccer star Sydney Leroux on a turf surface. Kobe Bryant tweeted out an image of the disturbing injuries for Leroux:

Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated passed along his thoughts on FIFA as a whole:

"

But there’s a larger context to the story: Sexism has long been part of the fundamental culture at the top of FIFA. At a time when female political leaders are commonplace around the world—three of the four semifinalists at this year’s men’s World Cup had female heads of government—FIFA has had almost no female representation on any part of its executive level.

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Jen Fuller/Getty Images

The lawsuit states the women are looking to force FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association to change the surfaces to grass. As the sport continues to grow, the women playing it are simply looking to be treated the same as their male counterparts.

Other notable foreign players in the suit include Germany's Nadine Angerer, Brazil's Fabiana Da Silva Simoes and Spain's Veronica Boquete, according to The Associated Press (via CBS News).

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see how FIFA reacts to the lawsuit, as the women's FIFA World Cup is yet another chance for the sport to grow on an international stage.

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