Female players say fake soccer turf violates Charter

Making the world’s top female soccer players compete in World Cup games next year on artificial turf at stadiums across Canada is gender discrimination and violates human-rights law and even the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to a group of international players.

A group of international women’s soccer stars has retained two elite law firms, Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP in the United States and Osler Hoskin & Harcourt in Canada, and is threatening legal action over the decision to play the 2015 Women’s World Cup on a “second-class surface” they say causes more injuries and “degrades the women’s game.” FIFA president says Canada on its way to hosting a World Cup Midfielder Jessie Fleming says the Canadian team is confident ahead of the U-20 Women’s World Cup.

The letter, published on Tuesday by the women’s soccer news website The Equalizer, appears to take aim not just at FIFA and Canadian soccer officials, but at the event’s sponsors.

The turf war comes as Canadian soccer fans pivot from the men’s World Cup in Brazil to the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, which launched this week and is being held in cities across Canada.

Next year, Canada will also host the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with games in Montreal, Ottawa, Moncton, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver all on artificial turf.

Hampton Dellinger, a lawyer with Boies Schiller based in Washington, who is spearheading the legal effort along with Tristram Mallett, a Calgary partner with Osler, says putting the women’s tournament on fake turf is against Canadian law: “The bottom line is, it’s not the same [as the men’s playing surface], it’s not right and it’s not legal.”