BRISBANE, Australia — Sports governing bodies from Japan and Australia are under fire after complaints that male Olympic athletes flew business class to the London Games, while the women sat in the cheap seats.
Japan’s world champion women’s football team took exception to flying economy while their male counterparts sat in business class on a flight to Europe for the Olympics. The Japan Football Association said the men flew in business because they are professionals.
The
women’s team was assigned seats in premium economy for the 13-hour
flight to Paris while the nation’s under-23 men’s team was up front on
the same flight.
“It should have been the other way around,” 2011
FIFA women’s world player of the year Homare Sawa told Japanese media
after arriving in the French capital. “Even just in terms of age we are
senior.”
Basketball Australia says it will review its travel policy for national teams after complaints that the men flew business class to the Olympics while most of the women sat in premium economy.
The
women’s team is by far the most successful of the two, having won
silver medals at the last three Olympics. The men, who will be led in
London by San Antonio Spurs point guard Patty Mills, have never won an
Olympic medal.
On Friday, the sport’s national governing body said
it would “review our Olympic travel policy with the goal of ensuring
there is equity between travel arrangements for the men’s and women’s
teams attending future Olympics.”
The Opals’ most-famous player,
though, was not in economy: Seattle WNBA star Lauren Jackson was in
first class because she is an “ambassador” with the airline involved.
And another WNBA player, Liz Cambage, paid to upgrade herself to business class.
In
a statement Friday, Basketball Australia acting chief executive Scott
Derwin said the “policy around budgets for each national team gives the
leadership group of those teams some discretion over how their funds are
spent — and that includes travel arrangements.
“We should bear in
mind that in fact, historically, more funding has been directed towards
the Opals. But the simple fact is when a policy results in gender
inequality, it’s very clearly not the right policy.”
Incoming BA
chief executive Kristina Keneally, a former state political leader of
New South Wales, will start in her new role on Aug. 4. She said Friday
she welcomed the travel policy review.
“In this day and age,
there’s just no excuse for men’s and women’s sporting teams to be
treated differently when they both compete at the same world-class
level,” Keneally said. “The disparity is even more glaring when you
consider that our women’s basketball team is one of the best in the
world.”
In London, Australian chef de mission Nick Green said the
Australian Olympic Committee provides return economy airfares for all
team members with the official airline sponsor.
“We’re comfortable
for the sports to look after their athletes,” Green said. “We give them
the travel subsidy to travel … and the sports themselves determine
how they use that.”
Other Australian Olympic teams also fly
economy, but some organizations, like Swimming Australia, give its
athletes the option to upgrade to business class at their own expense.
Former
Australian women’s basketball captain Robyn Maher said the Australian
women’s team had repeatedly asked Basketball Australia to justify the
inequity.
“Over the years it’s been a multitude of (reasons given)
— the men get better funding, so they’ve been able to do it; the men
are bigger so they need more space,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“It’s been a bit of a sore spot, especially since the women are much
more successful.”
