September 17 – The festering dispute between the US women’s football team (USWNT) and their national federation over equal pay has escalated further with the players union deriding the latest offer as a publicity stunt.
Earlier this week, The US Soccer Federation announced it was prepared to offer identical contract proposals in an attempt to bring the women’s and men’s national teams under one collective bargaining agreement.
The sport’s national governing body made the offer to try and resolve the long-running feud with its women players, but if anything it had the opposite effect. The two sides have been at odds since the USWNTPA, the players’ union, sued the USSF for gender pay discrimination in 2019. The lawsuit, which sought $66 million in damages under the Equal Pay Act, was dismissed but the USWNT have since appealed.
“USSF’s PR stunts and bargaining through the media will not bring us any closer to a fair agreement,” the USWNTPA said on Twitter. “In contrast, we are committed to bargaining in good faith to achieve equal pay and the safest working conditions possible. The proposal that USSF made recently to us does neither.”
The USWNT’s current labour agreement expires at the end of 2021 while the men’s team have been operating under the terms of a deal that expired in 2018.
To put it into perspective FIFA offered prize money of $30 million to the teams in the 2019 Women’s World Cup, while the men took home $400 million in 2018.
In response to the USWNTPA’s social media post, the USSF tweeted: “An offer on paper of identical contracts to the USWNT and USMNT, and to discuss equalizing prize money, is real, authentic and in good faith. A publicity stunt is a 90-minute one-sided movie.”
The federation said it “firmly believes that the best path forward for all involved, and for the future of the sport in the United States, is a single pay structure for both senior national teams.”
“U.S. Soccer has once again called upon the players and both Players Associations to join the Federation in finding a way to equalize FIFA World Cup prize money between the USMNT and the USWNT. U.S. Soccer will not agree to any collective bargaining agreement that does not take the important step of equalizing FIFA World Cup prize money.”
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