U.S. women’s soccer players file official pay discrimination complaint with EEOC
Last summer, after their World Cup win, members of the U.S. women’s national soccer team made it very clear they weren’t happy with the pay disparity between the men’s and women’s squads. This week, they made their complaint official, filing a federal wage discrimination charge with the EEOC.
According to a story in the New York Times, five members of the team — goalie Hope Solo, co-captains Carli Lloyd and Becky Sauerbrunn, forward Alex Morgan and midfielder Megan Rapinoe — said they earned as little as 40% of what players on the United States men’s national team earned even as they marched to the team’s third World Cup championship last year. The five players, some of the world’s most prominent women’s athletes, said they were being shortchanged on everything from bonuses to appearance fees to per diems.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” the Times quoted Solo. “We are the best in the world, have three World Cup championships, four Olympic championships.” Solo said the men’s players “get paid more to just show up than we get paid to win major championships.”
U.S. Soccer, the governing body for the sport in America, argued in a conference call that the men’s national team produced revenue and attendance about double that of the women’s team, and television ratings that were “a multiple” of what the women attract, the Times said. A federation spokesman called some of the revenue figures in the players’ complaint “inaccurate, misleading or both.”
“The women’s team does the identical work as the men’s team, except they have outperformed in every way,” Jeffrey Kessler, a lawyer who represents the women, said on CNN.com. “The U.S. Soccer Federation made a profit of $16 million on the women’s team last year. It had a loss on men’s team.”
A big difference in the numbers
The numbers quoted by CNN are pretty startling. Check ’em out:
Men earn as much as $17,625 for an exhibition match against a top opponent, according to the court document, and get no less than $5,000 even if the team loses.
But women are paid a maximum of $4,950 even if they win every game. And they’re only paid for the first 20 exhibition games they play each year — they aren’t paid anything for any games beyond that. Men get paid for each game, no matter how many exhibition games they play.
And the men’s team earned $9 million in the 2014 World Cup for losing in the round of 16, while the women made $2 million when they won the 2015 championship.
“You can argue that based on their success, they’re entitled to even higher pay, but the law only requires at least equal pay,” Kessler said. “That just makes the case for equal pay all the more compelling.”
We’ll keep you posted.
