Landmark and Historic, U.S. Soccer Female Teams Gets Equal Pay
How years of negotiations paid off for U.S. Soccer female teams.
Soccer female teams like WNBA players lacked in pay compared to their male counterparts even in the face of similar wins and accomplishments. Women getting equal recognition and pay for doing similar jobs in all aspects of the business world as men have always lacked and had to be fought for independently.
Another landmark for women getting equal pay was in the U.S. Soccer and top female players agreeing to guaranteed equal pay per the news media. The labor agreements with members of the men’s and women’s national teams include higher paychecks and shared World Cup prize money.
The long fight is finally over for getting equality in pay and recognition. All the while, the United States soccer female teams won a World Cup championship and an Olympic bronze medal in the midst of fighting for equal pay.
Women’s soccer stars in real-time witness the laboring negotiations of thousands of dollars mount into millions of dollars. This real-time news about their landmark contracts with the U.S. Soccer Federation found much joy in each as many of them had chased equal pay for most of their careers.
Now, equal work for equal pay will be received for the first time and guaranteed equal pay for the United States men’s and women’s national teams when competing in international matches and competitions. Henceforth, the teams will pool the unequal prize money payments that the U.S. Soccer received from FIFA, the world soccer’s governing body, for their participation in the quadrennial World Cup. The 2022 men’s tournament and the 2023 Women’s World Cup monies will be shared equally among all teams’ members.
What has been accomplished with equal pay is a historic landmark as no other country has done such with equalizing World Cup payments according to the U.S. Soccer’s president, Cindy Cone, a former national team player, who guided the national teams to a deal.
All this came about when a group of the star players from the World cup-winning U.S. women’s national campaigned to end wage and gender discrimination against its female players by the U.S. Soccer. Their demands centered around lesser pay than their male counterparts for decades even while winning world championships and Olympic gold medals.
Prior to this landmark decision, the female soccer teams fought for per diems and paychecks with a lawsuit accusing U.S. Soccer of “institutionalized gender discrimination” but they lost in federal court in 2020 but won equal pay victory with the men’s team standing by them agreeing to share some of the millions of dollars in World Cup bonus money.
The women’s soccer teams have proven themselves over the years to be accomplished and capable most notable after the American women won consecutive World Cup championships in 2015 and 2019 and their teams consisted of the world’s most recognizable athletes.
Old habits die hard but the federation finally decided to do the right thing because the players earned and deserved equal pay and compensation. With this landmark win, the female soccer teams will be rewarded equally via bonuses, pooled prize money, and new revenue-sharing agreements from sponsors, partners, and broadcasters.
In conclusion, if you don’t fight you don’t get. This six-year battle between the United States women’s national soccer teams and U.S. Soccer ended with a multimillion-dollar settlement followed by a landmark labor agreement in May 2022.
After much negotiations and justifying their request, the men’s soccer teams decided with compassion to share with their female soccer teams, and now the rest is history. “Together we stand, divided we fall” is a true assessment when inequity is present. Let’s hope the WNBA get the message for their players.
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