Equal Pay: Female Soccer Stars’ Biggest Battle Off The Field
Right off the heels of a major lawsuit, a look at the largest disparity in soccer today
Confetti rains down and cheers surround you as you hold up a trophy in your arms and a gold medal between your teeth. After a month of constant battles, you’ve won the most important title in your field, making history and bringing honor to your entire country. The next day, interview after interview, but the focus of the questions are not about your big win. Instead, the focus becomes about your shockingly low salary. In 2019, this was the reality for members of the United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) coming off their major World Cup win.
During the summer of that year, the USWNT made it through every game in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, eventually winning the final. This became the team’s fourth World Cup win, making them the most decorated national team in women’s soccer. How does the men’s team match up to this? Well, they aren’t decorated at all. The United States Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) have never won a World Cup, not even close. In fact, the year before their female counterparts were raising the trophy, the men were stuck watching the 2018 FIFA World Cup from home as they did not even qualify for the competition.
So what? The women’s team is better than the men’s team, what’s the story there? Well, real the shock comes in when you look at the numbers. Coming off the 2019 World Cup, each player on the USWNT received about $250,000 as a bonus for winning the final. Just one year before, each player on the USMNT received about $253,000 as a bonus for losing a World Cup qualifier match. The women made $3,000 less for winning the entire competition than the men made for losing a game to see if they could even make it into the competition in the first place.
How is this possible? It seems unbelievable that there could be such an obvious disparity between the two teams’ salaries. The most common explanation people give for why the men make so much more for lower quality performances is that they are more popular and therefore more profitable to the United States Soccer Federation (US Soccer). However, this is simply not true. According to the 2016 revenue and spending report released by US Soccer, the USWNT made $5.2 million in profit, compared to the $964,000 in loss brought on by the USMNT. The women’s team both outperforms the men’s team and is more profitable, yet just looking at their salaries you would assume the opposite.
The team’s salaries are not the only obvious disparity, the women’s team also suffers worse working conditions. The USWNT gets the job done at a higher rate than the men despite having fewer support staff, lower quality traveling accommodations, and less updated facilities. These working conditions are not shocking though, when looking at that same revenue and spending report released by US Soccer. According to the report, 86% of the revenue brought in by the USMNT is invested right back into the team, while only 36% of the revenue brought in by the USWNT is invested into them.
Inequality in wages between the national teams is only one part of the battle though. Soccer players spend a very small portion of the year with their national teams, spending most of their career at the club teams they individually sign with. US Soccer is affiliated with Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), the United States club soccer leagues for men and women respectively. This affiliation makes it unsurprising that the same issue of a large gender based pay gap is also present at a club level.
In 2020, the NWSL raised their maximum salary per player to $50,000 a year. In comparison, the MLS minimum salary per player in the same year was $65,000, with some individual players even making well into the millions each year. MLS has also released a plan to continue increasing the minimum salary, which will reach $126,000 by 2027. The NWSL has not released any plan to continue raising salaries in the future.
In 2019, Lionel Messi and Megan Rapinoe stood together on stage at The Best FIFA Football Awards to be honored as the male and female player of the year. Both are frequently amongst the names for greatest players in their fields, yet they receive very different compensation for the same titles. According to Forbes, Messi has an estimated net worth of $600 million and receives an annual salary of $80 million from his team, Barcelona Football Club. Rapinoe on the other hand has an estimated net worth of $3 million and receives an annual salary of $50,000 from her team, OL Reign. The rest of their annual incomes come from their national teams and sponsorships which only widen the gap even more.
After failed mediation at the end of 2019, 28 members of the USWNT filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against US Soccer. The lawsuit alleged that US Soccer made decisions based on gender as the female players were consistently paid less and subjected to lower quality working conditions than their male counterparts. The players who signed the lawsuit stated they are seeking “equal pay for equal play.”
When Deadspin reached out to the USMNT players for comments on wage inequality in US Soccer, only 2 out of 23 responded to the request. Their responses? “No comment.”
Women cannot fight this battle alone though. Despite the lack of support from the men’s team, there seemed to be large amounts of support from the general public off the heels of the World Cup. That quickly died out however as the excitement of the big win and media coverage died down and the world forgot about women’s soccer yet again. The lawsuit also received a significant amount of backlash, many people calling the players “greedy” or “entitled.”
By the end of 2020, a settlement in the lawsuit had been reached. A settlement that did not address pay inequity. All parts of the lawsuit addressing the pay gap were forced to be thrown out of the case early on as US Soccer denied there were any wrongdoings in that area and a judge ruled the lawsuit would only be able to continue if it focused solely on working conditions. Through the settlement, the USWNT were able to secure comparable working conditions to the USMNT, but the pay gap remains.
Achieving the goal of equal pay in soccer is not impossible though. The United States may be one step behind, but there are still a handful of countries that have made major steps towards equality amongst their national teams. In 2020, both England and Brazil joined Australia, New Zealand, and Norway in committing to pay their women’s teams as much as their men’s. As this list continues to grow, it could be the push needed for other soccer federations, including US Soccer, to follow suit.
While much of the responsibility to bridge the gap is in the hands of US Soccer, you can still do your part to encourage that progress from the comfort of your own home. Just boosting interest in women’s soccer gives more reason for the federation to invest more in their female players. So, next time a USWNT game is happening go ahead and turn on the channel. Or, if you’re looking for a fun Friday night activity, consider purchasing tickets to see your local team in the NWSL. All these women will be sure to show you a game just as good as their male counterparts and, hopefully soon, their wages will reflect that.