The dispute between the US women’s national soccer team and national governing body the USSF has escalated after assertions by US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro that the women’s team have actually been paid more than the men.
Cordeiro and the USSF ended their post-World Cup silence when an open letter was sent to members alleging that the federation has been paying out millions more to women’s national team players than to their male counterparts over most of the past decade.
The letter states that an independent accounting firm has verified that the nation’s women’s players were paid $34.1 million by the federation from 2010 to 2018 in salaries and bonuses. It claims the US men’s national team were paid $26.4 million over the same period.
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Cordeiro and the USSF stated that while additional payments from FIFA for the men’s team remain higher than for the women (the total men’s pot paid out by FIFA for the respective World Cups is approximately 13 times larger than that paid to the women), this is at the discretion of FIFA, not the USSF.
Currently, the men's and women's teams operate with separate collective bargaining agreements and pay structures, which Cordeiro says is down to each team choosing "to negotiate a different compensation package" with US Soccer.
The USWNT say, however, that they offered to move to the same compensation structure as the men but this was turned down by the USSF, calling the refusal the "very definition of gender discrimination."
The USWNT filed an “institutionalized gender discrimination lawsuit” against the federation back in March, and have hit back at the open letter from the USSF, calling the numbers "utterly false."
Molly Levinson, a spokesperson for the USWNT players, said: "This is a sad attempt by the USSF to quell the overwhelming tide of support the USWNT has received from everyone from fans to sponsors to the United States Congress.
"For every game a man plays on the MNT he makes a higher base salary payment than a woman on the WNT. For every comparable win or tie, his bonus is higher. That is the very definition of gender discrimination.”
Also on rt.com ‘Arrogant piece of work’: Rapinoe criticized over clip showing her signing youngster’s ball (VIDEO)The US Women’s National Team played 198 games (including 13 World Cup appearances) between 2010-2018, compared to the US Men’s National Team’s 152 (which included eight World Cup matches).
The women also played a total of 10 matches at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, while the men did not participate.
The women's team defended their World Cup title in France this summer, claiming a fourth win overall.