US Women's National Soccer Team Settle Landmark Equal Pay Case
February 25, 2022
In a historic settlement announced on February 22, US Soccer has agreed to pay United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) players $24 million with the promise of equal pay, resolving a 2019 gender discrimination lawsuit. Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Carli Lloyd, Rebecca Sauerbrunn and Hope Solo began the fight for equal pay in 2016 when they filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asking for the same pay as the US Men’s National Team.
US Soccer will pay $22 million to the players in the case as well as an "additional $2 million into an account to benefit the USWNT players in their post-career goals and charitable efforts related to women's and girls' soccer." However, the settlement is all contingent on the ratification of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for the USWNT. The agreement also mandated that the women's and men's national teams will receive an equal rate of pay in all friendlies and tournaments, including the World Cup.
The pay difference was vast and evident when the USWNT won the World Cup in 2015, earning considerably less than the men’s team. In 2019, 28 members of the USWNT filed a lawsuit against US Soccer under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, claiming that women’s players were paid a total of $1.725 million in bonuses after winning the World Cup in 2015, while the men’s players were given $5.375 million in bonuses in 2014 by the same federation despite an elimination in the round of 16 (the first round of the knockout phase).
The federal judge threw out the majority of the lawsuit in 2020 on grounds that the women’s team players were paid more in total compensation, which was contested by an appeal saying that the women outperformed the men who have never won a World Cup. US Soccer decided to reach a settlement with the players to move forward even after winning the initial court case.
“Being in a contentious litigation with our players is not good for our sport,” said the US Soccer Federation president, Cindy Parlow Cone. “I think this is a momentous occasion. This is a huge win for soccer, this is a huge win for US Soccer, the players, of women’s sport, and I'm just so excited to move forward together and actually start working with the women’s team to grow the game both here at home and abroad.”
“We’ve been in this for a long time and coming from a long history of women that have fought to put this sport in a better place,” Rapinoe told CNN. “The thing I look forward to and I’m really proud of is that justice comes in the next generation never having to go through what we went through – it’s equal pay across the board from here on out.”
Source: CNN