Lingerie football to challenge American quarterbacks in tight pants
By AFP | Posted: 21 May 2009 1835 hrs

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FREEPORT, New York: A new twist has been given to the term exhibition match with American football in the hands of women players who've stepped up to strip down for a newly created Lingerie Football League.

The trials to get a place in the league saw some serious work-outs and tackles alongside just as serious mascara and lip-gloss breaks among two dozen young women in skimpy gym clothes.

All were hoping to earn a place in one of 10 teams in the newly created league.

Two male trainers, fully clothed, put the women through football drills while the league's Los Angeles-based founder, Mitchell Mortaza, reminded hopefuls: "If you prance, you're gonna get killed."

One contestant suffered bloody parallel scratches across her bare midriff -- apparently from an opponent's nails -- while another limped off with a leg sprain, and yet another left nursing a knocked head.

Mortaza, a 35-year-old sports marketer, tapping into the vast, intensely rich, and stubbornly macho world of football has for the past six years, organized a so-called Lingerie Bowl.

This was part of the annual Super Bowl and featured scantily clad women playing for a pay-per-view audience during the halftime.

Now he is expanding the concept to a year-round tournament featuring teams that range from the San Diego Seduction to the Chicago Bliss.

And then, there's the players uniforms. For the trials, the dress code for the session was "cute."

In the future, while the players will be considered semi-professional with earnings depending on ticket sales, bras and underpants will rule the bottomline.

"You have to be beautiful. We make no bones about it. That's the difference between this league and the myriad of others," Mortaza said.

Asked if he would allow in players who played well but did not meet his standards for beauty, he answered flatly: "No."

There's even an unofficial weight limit of 54-56 kilos in force, he said.

Team hopefuls, who number in the thousands across the country according to organizers, say they are untroubled at being considered exploited.

"They say it's degrading, but it's not. We don't just stand there looking pretty. We hit pretty hard," said Sovann Wyong, 29, who handles luggage for JetBlue airline and flew down from Boston for the try-out.

"When they play football, guys wear tight pants and show their physique, their arms," she said.

Allison Vernon, 27, who works as a personal fitness trainer in Manhattan, admitted she found the "lingerie a little scarier than the (football) drills."

"Is it sexist? Probably most people I went to college with would think so. I went to an all-women's liberal arts college," she said.

But 25-year-old Anika Edwards said one look at the league's racy website left her so convinced, she took a day off from work at a hair salon to attend the try-out.

"I've done a little modeling. Then I saw the website and I thought: that's so me. There are girls and they're playing football. I love playing football. I love to model."

According to the one of the team stalwarts, the very blonde and unseasonably tanned Melissa Teixeira, 23, accusations of sexism are off the mark.

"I don't think it's sexist at all. We're doing athletic activity as well. We're not just modeling," she said.

"As a model I've been in my underwear in public, so it doesn't bother me" Teixeira went on to say.

So would Mortaza take the field in just his underpants?

"I'll keep working on my abs. Give me a month and I'll get there," he said.

- AFP/sf