Anyone who follows American sports knows that there’s been a battle going on between the US Women Soccer National Team (USWNT) versus their own federation, the US Soccer Federation (USSF). The issue of contention was that the women should earn much more parity in pay as compared to the male counterparts; in general, women always earn less than men. But the USWNT has always been a dominant powerhouse for decades, and they have the most number of World Cup titles and just won the most recent one. The tournament was certainly popular internationally.
The federation and players have not been able to get on the same page, leading (like it always does in America) to a lawsuit. Here is where it gets interesting. Just have a look at the legal briefing, of which the language was written by lawyers without the federation having a look at it first:
“MNT players have responsibility for competing in multiple soccer tournaments with the potential for generating a total of more than $40 million in prize money for U.S. Soccer every four years. WNT players compete in only one soccer tournament every four years that has the potential to generate any prize money at all, and most recently that amounted to one-tenth of the amount the MNT players could generate.”
”MNT plays in matches watched on television by many millions more people than the WNT.”
”The average viewership for MNT matches over the first three years of the current WNT CBA was nearly five times as high as that for WNT matches, excluding matches in the Women’s World Cup.”
”As for the World Cup, when the MNT last qualified, the ratings for its four World Cup matches were watched by more viewers than all the WNT matches in 2019 combined, Women’s World Cup included.”
”In games for which U.S. Soccer holds the television broadcast rights (and therefore can monetize the ratings), the MNT has averaged more than three times as many viewers per game since 2017.”
Then the lawyers argue (again as per SI):
“He insists that men’s players face much more demanding working conditions and thus have fundamentally different—and, by implication, harder—jobs. He contends that men’s players encounter “opposing fan hostility” in road environments, particularly in Mexico and Central America, that is “unmatched” by anything experienced by women’s players. Stolzenbach stresses that the women don’t play in Mexico, Central America or the Caribbean when trying to qualify for tournament play. Further, Stolzenbach maintains that “science” confirms there are different levels of speed and strength required for men’s and women’s players. He insists it is not a “sexist stereotype” to recognize this distinction.”
The arguments are pathetic and discriminating, especially considering that the men’s team didn’t even qualify for the last World Cup, and has never reached a WC final. And at the moment, they’re bad.
And with that, the criticism has been so bad, from even people within the federation, that the president has been forced to step down after earlier making a public apology.
This is just as bad as Apple’s recent court battle alleging that the company doesn’t need to pay for store workers’ time when their bags are searched during off hours, because allegedly Apple Store workers don’t have to bring their Apple devices to work. What?
