USA Soccer: Women’s Players Paid More Than Men Over Last Decade

The U.S. Soccer Federation has released figures regarding pay for the women’s and men’s national teams. The women, who are fresh off of a win in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, have been fighting for equal pay and even filed a lawsuit against the federation.

Well, if you believe the figures, their case just took a hit.

According to U.S. Soccer President Carlos Cordeiro, the federation paid the women’s team $34.1 million in salary and game bonuses over the past decade. The figure does not include the value of benefits that are exclusively provided to the women’s team.

The men, meanwhile, received $26.4 million during the same period between 2010 and 2018.

Of course, Molly Levinson, who is a spokeswoman for the players in their lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, is not buying the numbers that she characterizes as misleading.

“The USSF fact sheet is not a ‘clarification.’ It is a ruse,” Levinson said in a statement, via FOX News. “Here is what they cannot deny. For every game a man plays on the MNT he makes a higher base salary payment than a woman on the WNT. For every comparable win or tie, his bonus is higher. That is the very definition of gender discrimination. For the USSF to believe otherwise, is disheartening but it only increases our determination to obtain true equal pay.

“The USSF has repeatedly admitted that it does not pay the women equally and that it does not believe the women even deserve to be paid equally. This is why they use words like ‘fair and equitable,’ not ‘equal’ in describing pay.”

One of the main factors that has led to people calling the figures misleading is that the U.S. Soccer Federation’s numbers include NWSL salaries:

The federation pays the members of the U.S. women’s team a $100,000 base salary and $67,500-$72,500 annually to play in the NWSL, according to its Monday letter. The U.S. women also can earn bonuses for playing in national-team games.

The statement from the U.S. Soccer Federation comes just before the women’s team is set to begin mediation in its gender discrimination lawsuit.