U.S. Soccer and Women’s Players Agree to Settle Equal Pay Lawsuit
The New York Times
Under the terms of the agreement, the athletes will receive $24 million and a pledge from the federation to equalize pay for the men’s and women’s national teams.
A six-year fight over equal pay that had pitted key members of the World Cup-winning United States women’s soccer team against their sport’s national governing body ended on Tuesday morning with a settlement that included a multimillion-dollar payment to the players and a promise by their federation to equalize pay between the men’s and women’s national teams.
Under the terms of the agreement, the athletes — a group comprising several dozen current and former women’s national team players — will share $24 million in payments from the federation, U.S. Soccer. The bulk of that figure is back pay, a tacit admission that compensation for the men’s and women’s teams had been unequal for years.
Perhaps more notable than the payment, though — at least, for the players — is U.S. Soccer’s pledge to equalize pay between the men’s and women’s national teams in all competitions, including the World Cup, in the teams’ next collective bargaining agreements. That gap was once seen as an unbridgeable divide preventing any sort of settlement; if it is closed by the federation in ongoing negotiations with both teams, the change could funnel millions of dollars to a new generation of women’s players.
