Alex Morgan is taking her talents to France, in what could be seen as a tacit — and stunning — indictment of the state of professional women’s soccer in the United States.
The 27-year-old US women’s national team star announced Tuesday she was leaving the Orlando Pride of the National Women’s Soccer League after agreeing to a six-month deal with France’s Olympique Lyonnais, which is considered one of the best women’s club teams in the world.
“This was not an easy decision for me,” Morgan wrote in an essay on The Players’ Tribune. “As much as I love living and training and playing in Orlando, I’ve decided to take a huge risk and bet on myself.”
If America can’t retain Morgan — a pop-culture darling who has graced Sports Illustrated swimsuit pages and FIFA video game covers, and recently was married to MLS player Servando Carrasco — could her workplace defection be just the beginning of an alarming trend? Where the marquee attraction goes, will others follow?
It’s hard not to read between the lines when Morgan praises the creature comforts at Lyon — which last season won Europe’s Champions League, in addition to the French league and French Cup — under multi-millionaire Jean-Michel Aulas (who has made a conspicuous habit of tweeting at Morgan).
“They are committed to growing women’s soccer and provide the women with first-class facilities and an unparalleled training environment on par with the men’s team,” she wrote, with everything but a winking-face emoji. “They recently opened a new stadium that holds 60,000 people, and the training facility is right next door — perfect grass fields, covered fields for when it rains, beautiful locker rooms, everything you need, really, to create an environment for success.”
Now compare that to what frustrated NWSL players have called inadequate conditions at their stadiums. The league was humiliated in July when the Seattle Reign and Western New York Flash played on a field with a width 12 yards under the league standard.
Morgan was one of many stars to rip the NWSL for unfair treatment.
Hope Solo followed with a detailed essay on her website, listing her grievances — from turf fields to unsanitary locker rooms to inadequate security — with the NWSL for treating its players lesser than their male counterparts in the MLS.
“We have a crisis on our hands and the players of the NWSL want to see more from our commissioner and our league,” she wrote. “We lose a lot of players — quality players for the league — over time because they can’t afford it. In the end, to watch them realize their dreams aren’t sustainable is very hard to watch — and there are a lot of broken dreams for women in our sport.”
While NWSL Commissioner Jeff Plush admitted the league made the “wrong decision” by moving the Reign-Flash game to a sub-standard field, players stood their ground.
“Apology not accepted,” Megan Rapinoe wrote on Twitter.
In 2015, while traveling with the Portland Thorns, Morgan angrily called out the NWSL in a tweet for lodging the team in a hotel infested with mold and bedbugs.
“.@NWSL there’s no other way to address continuing problems. Hotels have been unacceptable. For ex. :Bed bugs/mold @ Adams Mark Hotel in KC,” Morgan wrote.
Morgan, who is among the leaders of a grievance with the US Soccer Federation pushing for equal pay for women’s national team players, noted she will remain on call for all of Team USA’s games.