Japan's women soccer players likely to get flight upgrade home

If the men's team doesn't win the bronze against South Korea will they be flown home in a hotair balloon ?

This is simply an unacceptable behavior in... 2012 ! If seat availability is an issue, ask those 'losers' to return on budget flights and let the winners to take premium economy then cancel all business class seats ( especially donot waste money on some bureaucratic JOC officials who dared putting forward with such silly ideas ! )

Put the men in economy. I'm glad these women were making some noise about the blatant sexism. They are the more successful team, they deserve business class at least!

ALL Olympians should have been flown using JP Airforce one or whatever they call it. The PM nor any of his cronies deserve a seat on that plane.

　　 I correct my previous post. It is not sexism. This article doesn't include all the information.

Apparently, from what I can gather, ALL jpns olympic hopefuls were to be flown economy class, and most in fact did. However, the Japanese soccer association, separate from the jpns gov, or the jpns olympic committee, kicked in extra money for the men's team to fly business class. This was furthermore not necessarily a soccer association directive, so much as, or at least in concert with, actual individual fans/ donors giving money to the saoccer association to fly the men's team business class.

Apparently all other olympic athletes flew economy. It was more a case of fans sponsoring a specific team they wanted to cheer on than a man-woman thing. That would be why the women's team coach says "we don't mind flying home economy". Tha t said, it is apparently being talked about whether they should have done that, whether they should have used the money for both teams, or spread among all olympic athletes somehow, or just not even given any special money to begin with at all, for fairness' sake. It is apparently being talked about to some extent in the jpns media.

A lot of apparently's, but that's apparently how things went, more or less.

Nadeshiko Japan deserves 1st class seats back home and an in-flight Chippendale performance with Channing Tatum doing lead - if they beat the USA again, this time for the gold medal. If they win just the silver, the pilot and flight engineer will serve lunch to them in-flight.

I think they deserve a Private Jet

The men are still there for the bronze medal match.

kurumazaka ... where did you see a six foot, 200 lb man in Japan exactly ...except the sumo stables ?

actually, since men already lost they should be already going back, why waste money staying there...

They could, for instance, exchange the economy seats with the business seats of the men team. Let the more successful team be travelling in business class!

You've got to be kidding! Ride in business with the men.....maybe, but instead of the men...........c'mon, this is still Japan.

How 'bout the men give their seats to the ladies?

Now that the men's team failed to make the finals, will there seats be downgraded to economy class? Let's see what happens?

“The problem is when we go back, there will probably not be enough business seats available. If that’s the case, we will be in premium again,” the 54-year-old quipped.

Ah, they would of course like to upgrade them, if they could, but unfortunately there are not enough seats available. That's again the Japanese way of saying a positive thing without doing nothing.

They could, for instance, exchange the economy seats with the business seats of the men team. Let the more successful team be travelling in business class! But maybe this is to much administrative burden - or they find another excuse.

There were claims of sexism after the women were seated with the hoi polloi

Aside from the fact that "the hoi polloi" is redundant (hoi meaning "the") I like that line.

assign the seats in random order and rid the asinine concept from the brain to begin with

They SHOULD get the upgrade, or if not then the men should be downgraded to economy and they all ride home in the same fashion.

I should say so!

Oh boy, it must have been a dream long sought after for these world class athletes to score a free international business class flight.

If they Win,Why Not Give them the Entire Plane? The Men are already goners!

Why exactly does it matter which class they travel by? They've been assigned a job and get paid for it. As long as it is consistent, where all the athletes travel by the same class, no one should be making a fuss of how they travel for a couple of hours...

They should remain in the low economy and make sure EVERYONE in global media knows about incl. names responsible. That will be a proper embarrassment!

Maybe if they'd been offered nice seats, they wouldn't have had to play for a draw because they didn't want to travel...

Insulting is all you can say. Another embarrassment for Japan that probably won't be a big deal here, because it is "normal", nothing worth taking note of. And complaining about anything, the complainer looks bad. There's a lot I like about jpns culture, but not these parts.

They deserve a downgrade because of what their coach told them to do in the match with South Africa. Canada gets criticized for delay tactics, but it's ok to not win on purpose?

Japan is a very sexist country still stuck in the past in so many ways.

Whatever colour medal the team wins, I think they should refuse to accept an upgrade and take a stand and make a point.

It's embarrassing for the country to let the divide go between the men's and women's teams.

Then again, it's acceptable in this Japanese society.

suginamiguy, well said.

That the men had better seats than the Wold Cup Female Winners in the first place says much about beautiful Japan.

They don`t deserve an upgrade, they just should have been sent business class in the first place. If you want your athletes to win, you need to treat them like champions in the first place ... not treat them like champions only after they win.

in recognition of their status as potential medalists.

Potenial shown! Good job ladies!

Those girls deserve a flight upgrade. They did extremely well in the Olympics and I am sure every person in Japan is proud of them. I am not a football fan, but I will be watching the finals and I will be rooting for Japan!

Take the man's and women's tickets and switch them. Problem solved. And if they win gold, every player that was on the pitch should sit first class.