Australia's governing body has been slammed for flying its men's basketball team in business class, while flying their women's team in economy. This is the second team where gender bias has caused a media storm of outrage, the first being Japan's more succesful woman's soccer team flying economy to London, while their lower-ranked men's soccer team flying business.
Scott Derwin, Acting chief executive of Basbetball Australia said to Reuters, "The simple fact is when a policy results in gender inequality, it's very clearly not the right policy going forward.
"I am putting in place a review of 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."
This issue, however isn't new as it has been a long-standing policy that men are allowed to fly business class for flights that are longer than three hours. Australia's women's basketball team have won silver for the past three Olympics, while the mens team, the boomers, have never received a medal.
Japan's current woman's football team is currently world champions, yet their male were the only ones flying business class to London. "I guess it should have been the other way around," Homare Sawa, Fifa's 2011 world player of the year from Japan's soccer team, told journalists, according to The Guardian newspaper. She added "Even just in terms of age, we are senior."
The Japanese Olympic committee said that most of their athletes were required to fly economy, the exception being made for physically large competitors such as judoka. The Japanese soccer authorities said that the mens team has been flying business class since 1996, because of their professional status.
These arrangements, for both the Australian and Japanese teams, do not correlate with their countries records as the women's team for both countries are ranked higher.
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