The World Cup is coming to North America next year, and with it, plenty of new American attention on soccer. That’s true of Spokane, too, which could host a national team next summer.
Some people in the city want to use soccer’s growing popularity to direct attention toward athletes historically underrepresented in the sport.
In this program, SPR’s Eliza Billingham will talk with Nil Vinyals, co-founder of a new competitive soccer league for athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities, alongside Mike Pellicio, head coach of Spokane's newest soccer team.
"There's so much data that supports how sports competition improves well-being — from a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint, from a social standpoint — in this in this community," Vinyals said. "So again, it comes back to, Why do athletes without intellectual disabilities get to compete and why don’t athletes with intellectual disabilities have the chance?"
We’ll also talk with Katie Harnetiaux, co-owner of the Spokane Zephyr, Spokane’s first top tier professional sports team of any kind.
"We knew that we wanted professional women's soccer in Spokane. And we knew what that meant in terms of how we could broaden pathways for athletes, how we could broaden career opportunities for folks -- but specifically women."
