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It has been well documented that men, in all fields, have gotten higher pay than women. For decades, women have fought to bring this issue to the forefront of society’s mind. They have consistently scratched and clawed their way to close the wage gap considerably but arent content just yet. In the early 1960s, women like Esther Peterson and Eleanor Roosevelt were some of the prominent names pushing for change. In 2020, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd and the entire US national team have taken the fight in their own hands.
In March of 2019, some players decided to file a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation, the governing body of soccer in the United States. Now, certain documents that were initially unavailable to the public reveal that the women are looking to be paid at least $66 million in damages from the USSF. Those documents also include the separate collective bargaining agreements for the men and women that show the stark contrast in bonuses and pay structures between the different genders.
The men’s national team operates on a pay-to-play type of agreement. The women do not have that same luxury. Molly Levinson, the spokeswoman for the national team, and the USSF got into a minor war of words over that specific structure. In a statement, The USSF claimed that the women were offered a similar same pay-to-play structure but rejected the offer. U.S. Soccer issued a statement that mentioned what the women wanted out of the negotiations. “Their preference was a contract that provides significant additional benefits that the men’s national team does not have, including guaranteed annual salaries, medical and dental insurance, paid child-care assistance, paid pregnancy and parental leave, severance benefits, salary continuation during periods of injury, access to a retirement plan, multiple bonuses and more.”
Levinson took offense to the statement and fired back with a statement of her own saying, “In the most recent CBA negotiation, USSF repeatedly said that equal pay was not an option regardless of pay structure.” Levinson acknowledged that the USSF did offer a pay-to-play contract but it was nowhere similar to the men’s deal. “USSF proposed a `pay to play structure’ with less pay across the board. In every instance for a friendly or competitive match, the women players were offered less pay that their male counterparts. This is the very definition of gender discrimination, and of course the players rejected it.”
The cries for equal pay have intensified as the Women’s National Team has continued their dominance over the rest of the world. They won their second straight World Cup in 2019 while the US men have yet to reach the pinnacle of success that the women have seen. They did not qualify for the World Cup in 2018. Yet, they are still paid significantly more. A prime example of this is the money dispersed by FIFA in response to each team’s World Cup success. The USSF received $9 million from FIFA for the men reaching the second round of the 2014 World Cup, but only $2 million for the women winning in 2015 and $4 million for their victory in 2019.
The fight for equal pay will continue in May when trials are scheduled to start.
