FIFA website uses male pronouns to describe Women's World Cup players
FIFA's website didn't get off to the best start for the 2015 Women's World Cup.
Canada and China opened the tournament on Saturday in Edmonton. Unfortunately, FIFA's official website didn't seem to get the memo that this is the Women's World Cup, as its match tracker referred to several players as "he" instead of "she."
The error comes amid a corruption scandal engulfing FIFA. In May, 14 soccer officials and business associates were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on various corruption charges, and earlier this week FIFA president Sepp Blatter—who recently called himself a "godfather" of women's soccer—indicated that he would be resigning from his post in the coming year.
The website slip-up is minor in the grand scheme of FIFA's controversial relationship with women's soccer. In 2004, Blatter said that female footballers could wear tighter shorts to help boost the popularity of the women's game, and he ignored calls from players leading up to the 2015 World Cup for the tournament to be played on grass rather than artificial turf.
If you're not going to give the players real grass to play on, the least you could do would be to use the proper pronouns. C'mon FIFA.
UPDATE: FIFA's social media manager attributed the error to a bug and said it had been fixed.
[h/t SB Nation]
- Stanley Kay
