It has been one of the most enduring sagas of American sports, as the U.S. women’s national team is looking for a new contract or a resolution of its lawsuit against American football that sees them earn a huge salary to represent his country. American football would you have believed who has recently made an offer that will solve everyone’s problem. But like the rest of this fight, it doesn’t feel so clear.
US Soccer says their offer is exactly the same contract for both teams, to combine them into a single CBA. They have said in the past that they had previously offered it to women and that it was rejected. The USWNT says this has never happened, although when the expelled judge this part of his lawsuit against American football, he agreed with the organization.
Offering women the same pay-per-play deal isn’t as simple as it sounds. The women’s team has a salary structure for its best players, decided by the manager of the national team every year, who gets no matter how much he appears in the national team. The men’s team is only paid when it is called up to the national team. It’s a question of whether women want to give up on this, because obviously their salary with their club teams doesn’t come close to what men earn with their club teams. It’s a six-figure salary for each of them, and that means a lot of money to give up, depending on how the pay numbers come in to play.
But that’s not the real talking point of the latest US Soccer offer, though the details aren’t clear. American football has said in its bid that the World Cup bonuses, one of the most important points for the women’s team, will be matched. It doesn’t really say how. What we do know is that for the 2022 Men’s World Cup, each team will hand out $ 440 million. For the 2023 Women’s World Cup, each team will hand out $ 60 million in prizes. Clearly they are not the same. We can summarize that what US Soccer proposes, and this is just speculation, is to group the two sets of awards and distribute them equally among the men and women who participate in these World Cups. Depending on the degree of progress of each team in their respective tournaments, this group could increase.
What is … a solution? Either way the best solution … is hard to come by there. Yes, it would equalize the pay between the two teams, which has been the stated goal. And maybe that’s enough with everyone. Although it is difficult to imagine that the men’s team had a salary reduction and, in this case, quite large, to equalize the salary of women. Maybe they are so friendly.
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What is this? sort of it feels as if American football has entrusted the responsibility for equal pay to the men’s team, and if the USMNT rejects this proposal, then American football can wash its hands and say it’s the men’s team’s fault and there is nothing else they can do. Again, all of this is speculation, but it certainly is.
It could be that the US Soccer offer only contains the same percentage of World Cup bonuses, which would not have equal value given the disparity in prizes between the two tournaments. We don’t know yet. Is it a satisfactory solution? Although a lot has been done in countries like Brazil and England announcing equal pay for men’s and women’s teams, all it involves is what the FA pays for calls, friendlies and matches out FIFA and UEFA competitions. When it comes to awards, all of these FAs have promised that their women’s teams will be equal percentage of award-winning money that men get. They are not equal money.
The other problem running alongside the first is that if that offer doesn’t work, there’s not much football to match the World Cup awards. As we said, the men’s teams hand out $ 440 million in Qatar. The women’s teams will distribute $ 60 million in 2023 to Australia and New Zealand. American football has no difference in the two totals under the sofa cushions. And, no matter how unfriendly U.S. football may be, it shouldn’t be a problem to clean up FIFA’s problems.
As I have said a few times, the real struggle is with FIFA, which decides who gets what for the World Cup. When selling television rights or sponsorships, FIFA does not delimit the two competitions. When FOX bought the television rights, it bought them as a package, as do all other broadcasting companies around the world. When Coca-Cola sponsors it, it sponsors both. It needs to be argued somewhere that this entitles women’s teams to much more than they are getting at the moment. But ignoring the laws of international tribunals can be a headache that the USWNT does not want or it can simply be beyond them.
American football would want everyone to believe that the finish line is in sight. You can say that when you constantly move the goals … and for whom you move them.