The US Soccer Federation aims to “equalize” World Cup prize money for its men’s and women’s national teams as part of efforts to settle ongoing litigation with its women players, federation president Cindy Parlow Cone said on Friday.
In an open letter addressed to US fans, Parlow Cone said the gulf in prize money paid out by FIFA in the men’s and women’s tournaments was “by far the most challenging issue” facing the organization in pay negotiations with men’s and women’s teams.
The question of World Cup prize money formed a prominent part of a lawsuit filed by the US women’s soccer team in 2019, which accused the body of “stubbornly refusing” to pay it’s men and women’s players equally.
Photo: AP
A federal judge later rejected the claim of pay discrimination, but the US women have appealed.
The 2019 lawsuit cited the discrepancy in World Cup prize money payments paid to the two teams in 2014 and 2015. The US men received US$5.375 million for reaching the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup, while the women received US$1.725 million for winning the 2015 tournament.
The federation has said that its hands are tied because the prize money is set by FIFA, which awarded US$38 million to France for winning the 2018 men’s World Cup in Russia, but only US$4 million to the American women for winning the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
“FIFA alone control those funds,” Parlow Cone said in her letter. “And US Soccer is legally obligated to distribute those funds based on our current negotiated collective bargaining agreements with the men’s and women’s teams.”
She added that US Soccer wants to bring the men’s and women’s national teams together to “rethink how we’ve done things in the past.”
“To that end, we have invited the players and both players associations to join US Soccer in negotiating a solution together that equalizes World Cup prize money between the USMNT [US men’s national soccer team] and USWNT [US women’s national soccer team],” she wrote.
“Finding a framework that works for everyone would require open and thoughtful conversations and sincere commitment from USMNT and USWNT players to come together,” she added “Until FIFA equalizes the prize money that it awards to the men’s and women’s World Cup participants, it is incumbent upon us to collectively find a solution.”
A spokeswoman for the US women’s team said the letter showed that the federation “finally acknowledged that they pay women less than men and must correct this ongoing disparity by reaching an equal pay collective bargaining agreement and resolving the ongoing lawsuit.”
“Letters to fans are not a substitute,” it added.
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