parity | trent alexander-arnold²

five.

where flowers blossom, so does serenity

For her projects to advance women's football, Wynter understood that if she were to only request female perspectives on the situation, responses would most likely be rather positive ones since it would favour their livelihood. She knew that could cause the whole decision-making process to be heavily deemed as biased so she needed to collect men's say on the situation in hopes it would reflect the male population's collective opinion on her potential changes foe football.

There was a high possibility that she could gain controversial responses from those who disagreed with her unofficial policies, some players subconsciously holding a minor disliking towards her or anything that sponsored her name in any way. Wynter had to take them as they were, for now, knowing that she needed them if she herself didn't want to be deemed as sexist by the other side of the gender spectrum.

So here she was, stood by an A1-sized board, a rough template of her crafts scattered across the large page, her messy handwriting upholding nearly every single inch of the page. Several arrows pointing in every direction across the sheets, almost making it all seem confusing, however, the usage of the radiant coloured highlighters cleared up the confusion. Many players' names placed in ranking order, indicating which ones Wynter personally favoured over others.

For a firm fifteen minutes, Wynter stood by her poster wearing black leggings along with her by-now trademarked oversized hoodie with the hood pulled over her hair, a few natural baby hairs poking out of it. In a rather vivid manner, she explained and described every detail of her project to the player on the other side of her phone, who seemed rather interested in her takes, a baseball flying in and out of his grips as he occasionally threw it up in the air but still handed his undivided attention to her little presentation.

When she concluded her little speech, she let out a tired sigh, adjusting her hands over her hips, a hopeful look on her face. "So what do you think?"

On the other side of the phone, Kylian laughed at her enthusiasm. "I think it's amazing."

"You really think so?" Her eyes lit up.

"Of course! I mean, clearly you're taking all of this very seriously, including every aspect that should be included. Honestly, it's a good thing that FIFA and UEFA put this all in your hands because if it were them doing the job, it wouldn't have been this good. Knowing them, they were probably would've rushed the whole project. Je l'aime, vraiment," Within a second, a worried expression overcame the smile on Kylian's face, almost as if he was afraid to voice his truth. "However. . ."

"What? Is there something wrong with it? I mean, it's still only a rough idea of what I have in mind and I'm constantly working on improving it—"

"Wynter," Kylian uttered her full name, gaining her attention. He grasped his baseball with both hands. "I'm not talking about your project. Like I said before, I think it's amazing, but I'm just thinking about some players who may oppose your ideas."

"What do you mean?" Even though the french girl already had the precautions in mind, she wanted to hear out her best friend's inner thoughts on the controversial topic.

"Your ideas impose that there should be one to two female players on a male roster, right? Well, if there are two female players on a squad and if they are better fits, then they could take away from male players, who obviously are going to cast all the blame on the female players for taking their chances to play. This may not affect major players like Ronaldo or Messi, but this may affect smaller players who are working up to the first team level or players who are always benched."

Her face scrunched up from the annoyance that quickly fuelled up in her system. "Okay, I guess I understand but whether a player gets a chance to play is solely on how hard they train themselves which later affects whether their manager thinks they're fit to play or not. That right there has nothing to do with a female player being on a male roster."