Friday, 17 May 2024

U.S. Soccer claims they pay women more than men

When the U.S. women’s national team won the World Cup three weeks ago, the crowd in Lyon, France began chanting “Equal pay! Equal pay!” Since then, the U.S. Soccer Federation has been under pressure from not just fans, but its own members, sponsors and even representatives from Congress.

Now, U.S. Soccer is breaking its silence, forcefully pushing back on the notion that the women haven’t been compensated fairly. In a letter and factsheet sent to U.S. Soccer members Monday, federation president Carlos Cordeiro claims that the women have actually been paid more than their male counterparts over the past decade.

According to Cordeiro, who says he directed federation staff to use actual W-2 filings and payroll records to analyze financials, the women’s national team players were paid $34.1 million in game bonuses and salaries from 2010 through 2018, while men’s national team players earned just $26.4 million.

“Just as our WNT players have shared their perspective, I strongly believe that you – as U.S. Soccer members, stakeholders, sponsors and partners – deserve to hear ours,” Cordeiro’s letter says. “Now that the Women’s World Cup is behind us, a common understanding of key facts will also help advance our shared work to grow women’s soccer in America as well as the larger national discussion about equality.”

Ostensibly, U.S. Soccer and Cordeiro put out these figures to end the narrative that U.S. Soccer hasn’t paid the women equally to the men and eliminate the term “equal pay” from the conversation, which has gained traction since the USWNT players sued their boss in March over alleged gender discrimination.

But areas of dispute – topics that will come up in mediation or, if necessary, trial – still persist.

The first issue is one that the players themselves have raised repeatedly: They have had to win to earn the compensation they do get, while the men don’t have the same burden of success.

The factsheet doesn’t make clear how much of the USWNT’s compensation is a direct result of the fact that they won a World Cup, an Olympics and the vast majority of their friendlies in that timeframe, while the men failed to qualify for a World Cup entirely. If the women had suffered the same failures as the men, their compensation would likely be much lower.

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