Marta’s team bans white shorts due to menstruation – 08/03/2023 – O Mundo É uma Bola

The Orlando Pride, the team in which the Brazilian Marta –voted six times the best in the world– plays, became the first team in the USA to take a measure that meets the long-standing desire of female soccer players.

Starting this season, athletes from the Florida team will wear black shorts instead of white, thus avoiding a possible embarrassing situation during menstruation.

The decision applies both to the team’s matches, which debut in the NWSL (the national championship, which has 12 participants) on the 26th, against Portland Thorns, and to training.

“We must remove the stigma involved in discussing menstrual problems that affect women if we are to maximize performance and increase accessibility to the sport,” Haley Carter, vice president of football operations for Orlando, said in a statement.

Speaking on behalf of the team, midfielder Erika Tymrak, 31, said: “The reasons why we don’t want to wear the white shorts are clear, but unfortunately it’s something that hasn’t been addressed until recently.”

Forbes magazine published that a study with 4,000 teenage girls carried out by the English institution Women in Sport (Women in Sport) in 2022 found that 70% said they would avoid playing sports during menstruation.

The American Women’s Sports Foundation reports that girls, at the age of 14, drop out of sports twice as often as boys of the same age, puberty being an influencing factor.

Athlete from London’s Crystal Palace, Leigh Nicol, 27, explains the importance of changing the uniform for the proper sporting performance of women.

“Physically, in addition to being more tired, there’s the concern that it might leak. That’s always on your mind, especially if you wear shorts that can show if there’s a leak.”

Orlando’s Tymrak called the team’s decision “a big step, as a club, to make the players feel comfortable and just focus on competing.”

The idea of ​​the American team is not unprecedented. Last year, Manchester City, one of England’s top clubs, announced that it would act on the menstruation problem, discarding the use of traditional white shorts for athletes from the 2023/24 season.

In order to initiate the action, the teams reached an understanding with their respective suppliers of sporting goods. In the case of Orlando, the American Nike; in Man City, the German Puma.

Two other English clubs that have women’s football teams, Stoke City and West Bromwich, from lower divisions, also decided to abolish the white shorts of the players’ uniforms.

Current European champions, the English team discusses with Nike the possibility of no longer performing in all-white clothing.

In the words of Beth Mead, 27, a striker for Arsenal and the English Team, “It’s nice to have an all-white kit, but it’s not practical when it’s that time of the month.”

According to the US Office of Women’s Health, linked to the US Department of Health, women menstruate, on average, for 40 years and lose up to three tablespoons of blood each cycle.

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