Goal Five makes advancing the sport of women’s football its goal
The first apparel brand dedicated exclusively to lifestyle and performance products for female footballers has launched to not only provide women who play the sport with appropriate apparel but advance equality in the sport as well.
Every four years, the FIFA Women’s World Cup represents the pinnacle of women’s football as a spectator sport. For those actually involved in all levels of “The Beautiful Game,” women’s football is a daily grind. It’s those individuals that a new company, Goal Five, aims to reach with its products along with benefitting the global women’s football community at the same time.
The company’s e-commerce site went live on Tuesday, Nov. 14, centering around nine products designed specifically for female footballers. Tops, shorts, tights, over-the-calf socks, bra tops and a training jacket are among the performance pieces, while the lifestyle offerings include full zip hoodies, pullovers, t-shirts, and hats in both mesh and snapback styles.
One of Goal Five’s founders, Keely Wachs, spoke about the design process for the apparel.
“We really are a brand that exists for the athlete,” Wachs said. “We want to make sure that she is a part of designing our silhouettes and the clothes as well. The way that works is we have a team that we call our girls advisory board which is a group of teenage girls around the country who participate and help us and give us feedback. We do that through online and video surveys and then real-time feedback on the actual custom clothing and have them wear it in advance. Some of our athletes participate in that process as well.”
To help promote the brand and steer its course as it seeks to reach the millions of women who play football around the world, Goal Five has signed several such women as ambassadors. Currently, that roster includes Sky Blue FC defender Kayla Mills, Seattle Reign defenders Carson Pickett and Lauren Barnes, Orlando Pride midfielder Nikki Driesse, Seattle Reign forward Katie Johnson, FC Bayern Munich defender Gina Lewandowski, Washington Spirit midfielder Joanna Lohmann and Orlando Pride forward Jasmyne Spencer. Those are the kinds of relationships in the sport that Wachs hopes will grow as the company’s reach expands.
“I think that’s certainly an aspiration of ours, we’d love to partner with any organization that wants to celebrate female soccer greatness,” Wachs stated. “We’re not arrogant or naive enough to think that’s going to happen tomorrow, but we certainly do believe that those opportunities will arise and we will partner with any organization that shares our passion for the women’s game and wants to keep it progressing.”
Although Goal Five is a for-profit business which looks to capitalize on the need for quality lifestyle and performance apparel among women’s footballers, there is also an equally important mission to improve equality in the sport that the brand has undertaken. Goal Five gets its name from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5, which works to make sure that all girls and women around the world have equal access to sport. In a partnership with global nonprofit agency streetfootballworld, Goal Five has committed five percent of its profits to programs advocating for gender equality in football around the world.
“I think there’s been a focus on the obvious markets and around cleats. Cleats have a good margin. I just don’t think it’s been a focus or priority for them [the major players in the apparel industry],” Wachs commented. “You could ask the same question of why the U.S. Soccer Federation isn’t investing more in the girls’ game too. It kind of defies logic. It’s tough to watch. 25 million viewers for the Women’s World Cup final, which was more than for the men’s final. If you want to be honest, it’s institutional. I think there is implicit prejudice and bias against the women’s game.”
“When we first started going out and seeding this idea and doing our initial market research, we went out to a bunch of local clubs here [on the west coast of the United States], we targeted 14-16-year-old girls and went to a bunch of clubs and sat down and asked them a few questions. One of the questions we asked them is would you be interested in gear from a women’s-only soccer company and the number one response, almost uniformly, the first thing out of their mouth was, ‘you mean that’s possible?’ ‘That could happen?’ It wasn’t even a possibility for them. It was something that they haven’t even conceived of. We said absolutely we can make you gear that’s fit for your body. We can make you gear that celebrates you.”
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While recent strides have been made in the promotion of women’s football, like the Norwegian football association agreeing to pay members of its women’s team the same amount as it does its men’s team, there is still much more work to do in order to reach the goal of the women’s game being as robust as the men’s game in all aspects. With its dedicated apparel and financial contributions, Goal Five is pushing the ball up the pitch toward the back of that net.