U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) star Alex Morgan, says there’s a “double standard” behind the criticism of her “tea sipping” celebration after scoring the game winning goal against France.
“My celebration was actually more about, ‘That’s the tea’, which is telling a story, spreading news,” Morgan said according to Sporting News. “Sophie Turner does it quite often, she’s one of my favorite actresses, so it wasn’t a hit to England in any way.
“I feel that there is some sort of double standard for females in sports to feel like we have to be humble in our successes and have to celebrate, but not too much, and have to do something, but it always has to be in a limited fashion,” Morgan added.
“You see men celebrating all around the world in big tournaments, grabbing their sacks or whatever it is, and when I look at sipping a cup of tea, I’m a little taken aback,” she concluded. “You have to laugh about it to see all of the criticism.”
The Team USA captain took a second to pretend to drink tea, her fingers to her mouth and pinky raised, after she scored the winning goal over the UK team sending the U.S. team to the finals and knocking the Brits out of contention.
The act quickly brought grousing from many British soccer fans.
Little of the criticism for Morgan’s “tea” stunt seemed oriented toward sexism, however. Most complaints seemed geared toward sportsmanship, and were not about the fact that Morgan is a woman.
In fact, the most direct criticism came from female former British player Lianne Sanderson who called the “tea” move “a little bit distasteful”:
Morgan said she was “disappointed” with Sanderson’s criticism.
“I’m a little disappointed in that, and obviously we were teammates at Orlando Pride, so I have the utmost respect for Lianne and all of my teammates that I’ve ever played with,” Morgan said. “So, it’s a little disappointing to see that,” she said.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.