It would be overly flippant to suggest that Abby Wambach is just doing what Americans do best: threatening to sue someone.
It wouldn't be wrong. She, along with around 40 top women's footballers, is threatening to sue FIFA and the CSA over the playing of the 2015 World Cup on an artificial surface. Still, to make a joke of it would be to ignore some of the real concerns the players have.
Namely, they are worried that the surface will make them more vulnerable to injury, will decrease the quality of play in the tournament and overall will just reflect poorly on the quality of women's football.
Those concerns might have merit. The quality of artificial turf in 2015 is such that it remains controversial. Top players hate playing on it and, more to the point, top male players refuse to do so.
And therein lies the main point. Wambach and co have claimed that FIFA and the CSA are forcing them to play on a surface that they would not force men to play on and, as such, that would be a case of gender inequality.
Canada is a country that takes great pride in gender equality. Although many people would (with justification) argue that no country, Canada included, as reached full equality it's clear that this country is better than most at dealing with this important issue. So, this claim will hit home. Canadians will not want to be viewed as being offside here.
Without speaking to Wambach and co we can only make assumptions about their motivations for launching this legal threat. However, it seems likely that it is an effort to speak to Canadians directly, appealing to their sense of fairness.
Most legal opinion we've seen today suggests that the claim has very little chance of success. From a legal standpoint there isn't a lot of evidence of discrimination (more on this in a minute). The moral argument is a different one.
Putting aside the accuracy of the argument about turf quality -- there are those who believe the concerns are overstated -- there is undoubtably a perspective that it is a second rate. Thus, many Canadians could be convinced that it is a double standard at play. The women must believe they can shame FIFA and the CSA into changing direction and installing grass surfaces in time for 2015.
Alternatively, they are looking to make as much fuss as possible to ensure that no one would dream of putting future World Cups on artificial surfaces.
The former seems unlikely and the latter, if you believe Sepp Blatter, who yesterday called artificial playing surfaces "the future" of the game, might be equally farfetched.
Regardless, the chance of legally forcing a change is close to impossible.
Since it's a Canadian claim they'd need to prove that the choice to play on turf in Canada is discriminatory in Canada.
In other words they'd need to demonstrate that they would not play a similar men's event on turf.
This is a problem seeing that three of five pro men's teams in Canada play on artificial surfaces, the two regional semi-pro leagues operating play on about 90% turf and plans for a all-Canadian men's pro league revolve around stadiums with artificial surfaces.
Additionally the last men's FIFA event played in Canada was partially played on turf.
You can argue that Canada is misguided in relying so heavily in artificial surfaces, but it's hard to argue they aren't equally misguided on the men's side of the game.