The tournament went on in late June and early July, one of the few truly quiet times on the world's sports calendar. Yes, there's Wimbledon, but that didn't affect you. This was the perfect time to provide a showcase for a fledgling women's sport. Your tournament drew a record TV audience around the world and, perhaps more important, was a huge hit in a massive country with a tremendous media presence that heretofore couldn't have cared less about your sport.

Just like that, you had a template for future success. Schedule your event in June and July every four years - August at the latest — sell it like crazy, and watch it take off. Women are a growth industry in your sport. You're maxing out on men, but due to old mores and traditions, you really haven't scratched the surface with women worldwide. You yourself have said that the future of your sport "is feminine."

It couldn't be simpler. "June and July, June and July". That is your mantra.

So what do you do? You bury your 2003 event in September and October and the 2007 tournament in September, only the busiest sports month of the year. And then you scratch your head and wonder why it seems that no one cares about the women anymore.

This, unfortunately, is a true story. It's a tale of the bad instincts and poor choices of FIFA, the governing body of the most popular sport in the world, soccer. The officials who are charged with promoting their sport have stuck their marquee women's event in direct competition with the start of men's pro soccer leagues around the world — and in the U.S. market, where the 1999 Women's World Cup thrived, up against the end of the baseball season and the beginning of college and pro football.

It's a recipe for disaster in TV ratings and news coverage. Were the men's World Cup saddled with these dates, it would fail miserably in the United States.

To stick the Women's World Cup in September is a sign of how completely out of touch FIFA is with its feminine side, and how little it truly is doing in its stewardship of the women's game.

With a straight face, a FIFA press officer e-mailed that one sign of how much the organization cares about women's "football" is that it makes all 207 national associations devote 10 percent of their FIFA funds to the women's game.

Yes, 10 percent. When you ask in a return e-mail why it's not at least 25 percent — dare we mention 50 percent? — to send a message that all federations must encourage women to play this game, you can sense the steam coming out of FIFA's computers in Switzerland.

So, from the glories of 1999, when the Rose Bowl was full and Brandi Chastain whipped off her shirt and the U.S. team made the covers of Time, Newsweek, People and Sports Illustrated magazines in the same week, we have come to this:

Only seven U.S. media outlets are heading to China to cover the event, which begins Monday. And a Nike ad on the U.S. Soccer Web site, says "Meet the greatest you've never heard of." Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy.

"If anybody looked at the success of the 1999 World Cup, they'd realize we scheduled it at the beginning of the summer not to compete with a thousand other events," said Donna de Varona, chair of the '99 tournament. "If you really want to do the best by the women, you don't hold it in September."

FIFA comes up with all kinds of excuses, that there's an international calendar it must consider and that September brings better weather to China, but the reality is China will host the Olympic Games next August, and at least could have done the same with the World Cup this year. That would have ensured a much greater summertime audience before men's sports heated up again.

Competing for space in the newspaper and air time on TV this month is not just an issue for women's soccer. It's also a concern for the WNBA finals.

"There are two games being played at the same time," said WNBA President Donna Orender. "There's the game on the field, or on the court, in which women are performing increasingly at higher levels, even spectacular levels. Then there's the game off the field. The competition in order to garner attention at a very crowded time in sports can still be difficult."