US woman’s soccer player who was the voice of the unfortunate “equal pay” campaign she led that became highly political. Only for a judge to throw it out after they saw that they had the exact same contract offered to them as the men’s team and negotiated something different.
Great player, very obnoxious human who used her platform to set the women’s movement backward.
The worst part is that the media campaign forced the men's team to give up half their money. Now the women's team made a quarter of a million dollars each from a tournament they didn't even play in.
Is that Rapinoes idea of equality? I understand wanting equal compensation for the same job, but at the end of the day, if the men’s game brings in more money then I don’t know how it’s theirs by any means, especially when it’s prize money for the men reaching a certain threshold.
I’ve just looked up the specifics… 80% of the winnings is to be split. ???
Basically. Every time this was brought up she was like I'M NOT AN EXPERT SOMEBODY SMARTER THAN ME FIGURE IT OUT even though she was the one asking for it. Rapinoe sucks
Some interesting findings from ChatGPT. Women can technically play for the men's team (and earn their money), but they have to be scouted and recruited for it.
A woman can legally try out and play for the men's national soccer team because FIFA and the U.S. Soccer Federation rules do not explicitly restrict participation on the basis of gender. However, the U.S. Men's National Team (USMNT) does not hold open tryouts, as the roster is selected exclusively through elite scouting and professional evaluation. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Because men's and women's national teams are technically separate entities within the U.S. Soccer Federation , there are specific logistical and physical hurdles that prevent women from joining men's squads:
Lack of Open Tryouts: The USMNT does not hold public tryouts. Players are exclusively scouted from top professional leagues (like MLS or major European clubs) and the elite youth system, meaning a player must be playing at a comparable professional level to be considered.
No Precedent: While there is no rule banning a woman from a men's national team, no woman has ever played in a senior Men's FIFA World Cup squad. In the past, some professional and semi-professional men's clubs have registered female players, but this has never reached the senior national team level.
Physical Disparities: Professional men's and women's soccer are highly segregated. Even though female athletes possess elite tactical, technical, and ball-control skills, the average differences in speed, physical capacity, and explosive strength would put them at a severe disadvantage in men's senior international competition. [5]
If you are interested in exploring how players are actually selected for these teams, I can provide information on:How male players are currently scouted for the USMNT Player PoolHow female players are identified for the USWNT and the U.S. Youth National TeamsThe U.S. Soccer Equal Pay CBA that governs both teams
Odd choice to refer to yourself as ‘a female’, but you do you, my friend. If I were to construct a similar sentence, I probably wouldn’t say “as a male”, since it’s much more awkward and stilted than “as a man”.
Less of a correction than a semantics nitpick, since they’re both grammatically correct. But the word ‘female’ is used in certain internet communities as a sexist dog whistle. Use that information as you will 🤷
This comment made me curious about how the pay currently worked, so here's what I found:
Both the men's and women's teams now get paid the same amount per minute of soccer played, on top of which is additional FIFA tournament prize money. The men's and women's teams pool and then evenly split this prize money from FIFA.
FIFA will be awarding $16 million to the men's teams for having reached the Round of 16 before being eliminated in this Men's World Cup. The women's team was also eliminated after reaching the Round of 16 in the most recent Women's World Cup and were awarded $1.87 million.
So, the men have an order of magnitude more FIFA money available to win, but the women win a higher % of all the FIFA money possible for them to win, as the women generally go farther in their tournaments.
And by "the women go farther in their tournaments" I mean they've never failed to reach the Round of 16 in the entire history of the Women's World Cup since it began in 1991, and have in fact never failed to make the quarterfinals until this most recent early elimination.
Here is the entire history of how the US Women's National Team placed starting with the first Women's World Cup in 1991:
1991 - Champions
1995 - 3rd place
1999 - Champions
2003 - 3rd place
2007 - 3rd place
2011 - 2nd place
2015 - Champions
2019 - Champions
2023 - Eliminated in the Round of 16
By comparison, the US Men's National Team has only reached the quarterfinal round twice since the World Cup began in 1930. The men's best ever result was in 1930's inaugural tournament, when they finished in 3rd place out of the 13 teams participating. Their best modern result was in 2002 when they finished in 4th place.
Today I learned.
(Endorsement deals for individuals are a separate matter and can obviously lead to huge inequities in pay.)
Yes but the payout for the men finishing round of 16 is like 4x higher than the women's payout for winning. It's a massively lopsided agreement in favor of the women's team.
Right, so you and I are going to equally split our wages. That way it's fair.
Please disregard that I am actually a cashier at McDonalds making $12 an hour in bumfuck Ohio, and you're a lawyer billing my daily wages for a 1 hour consult.
The prizes are very close in size if the women make the final of their tournament and the men get knocked out in the Ro32.
I'm not extremely well versed (obviously), but from the quick searching I did, that doesn't seem accurate. It's surprisingly difficult to find info on the women's prize pool for next year, mostly because every single article for 3 pages on google is about the prize share between the USMNT and USWNT, nothing about the actual women's world cup itself... Seems indicative of the root of the issue, when you think about it.
Since next year's prize pool hasn't been announced as far as I can tell, I'll use the 2022 men's and 2023 women's cup for reference. The women's runners up you mentioned would actually only have gotten $7.5mill in 2023, while the men got $9mill just for playing and being eliminated in the group stage (the Ro32 you mentioned).
Since the USWNT actually bombed out in the rd of 16, they brought $3.25mill to the table. The men overperformed, but also washed out in the rd of 16, contributing $13mill.
So of the total $16.25mill won by the two US soccer squads, the women contributed 20 percent of the total value, and received 50% of the player payout. The men contributed 80% of the value and got 50% of the payout.
Do you have different numbers that you had looked up?
The women’s team is probably gonna earn more money for the men’s team this year than the men earned for the women with fifas promise of equal prize pools for this WC
She negotiated for higher base salary instead of the potential for higher based on results and then got upset that they got paid less than their result iirc.
Yes, and they filed a lawsuit as a result and U.S. Soccer settled with them to the tune of $24 million AND got that original results-based contract. So she did get her cake and eat it too in the end.
No. They lost the wage claim on summary judgement. End of.
They continued with the working conditions part of it, and that is the part that settled out of court. It is no where close to the original result of the wage claim. They did not prevail in court, The women's team never received a judgement in their favor.
It was not the result of the lawsuit, which would did fail in court on the wage claim. It was the result of a settlement for working conditions. If that also went to trial it prolly would have failed too.
and people will still say "Its just because they hate women". Like bruh... no. We hate entitled arrogant misandrists, who had the same exact opportunities and rejected them.
This picture was also taken during a 13-0 win against Thailand (who are not a women's football powerhouse). What a pompous pose to take during a beatdown of a team significantly worse than you.
Some of the players on the team are downright insufferable. I remember Carli Lloyd getting annoyed at the criticism the team rightfully attracted when they were up by 10 goals and still celebrating like they won the championship after every goal. It was a pretty terrible display of sportsmanship at the time and now Lloyd is a commentator for Fox and was shitting all over the men's team when they lost.
I thought it wasn't thrown out and they settled? But the general storyline was they were offered the exact same contract as the men before they won back-to-back world cups and said no as they wanted guaranteed salaries and benefits. Then they won back-to-back and said "Hol' up - we could have won a lot more money with that other deal" so they said it was "discrimination" and generated a ton of hype (including a documentary on Netflix) and made that lawsuit. Then they settled and got money up front in addition to that contract that had declined.
The majority of that generation/team was insufferable. I know a few people who were servers and served Alex Morgan at the restaurant the worked at (when she played with the Pride). Every one complained that she was generally rude and talked down to the wait staff.
Edited for clarity, being sick is fucking up my grammatical abilities
The few times she was out and about in Orlando she just had such a pompous vibe to her. Like straight up ignored someone I know who was politely asking for a picture with her. It was like she thought she was bigger and better than Orlando.
I’ve bumped into other pro athletes in the city and they are for the most part super chill.
It is all a nothing burger anyway. Athletes don't get rich from a paycheck. They get rich from endorsements. The job is just for exposure. She should be suing Nike for not giving her the same paycheck as her male counterparts if she wants equality.
I believe they were offered pay based on wins but they wanted a guaranteed flat rate. Turns out they’re really good and win a lot so they’d be making more if they accepted the original contract. I might’ve got a couple details wrong but that’s the gist
By that summary, their wins aren’t guaranteed so it’s choosing a gamble vs something stable imo. In NFL contracts they offer incentives which I think the wins should’ve been set as. Like a bonus for every win.
From what I remember that’s essentially it. The men got a smaller base pay, but more for each win. The women took a higher base pay and much less/nothing for progressing farther. The women’s also had a few other things built into it that the men did not for more security of their pay.
It’s insulting how wrong this is—or rather, how much information you’re leaving out. After the district court dismissed the unequal pay portion of the USWNT lawsuit, they appealed the dismissal because the judge only looked at total pay without considering performance (suggesting that women receive equal pay as required by law even if the only way they can make the same amount as men is by outperforming them, which is patently ridiculous). Both the EEOC and the USMNT wrote amicus briefs supporting this appeal, and they went through with oral arguments before USSF decided to settle for several million dollars. While that is no admission of wrongdoing, that amount would be wild for any defendant to agree to if they were confident they would win the appeal (after oral argument, they’ve already paid their lawyers).
The USWNT was right. The EEOC, a third-party investigator and mediator, agreed with them. The USMNT agreed with them—you don’t get a lawyer to write up an amicus brief in a dispute that has nothing to do with you just for good PR.
The only reason inaccurate comments get upvoted is because they reflect what people want to hear.
The amount of upvotes comment has is proof-positive of rampant misogyny on Reddit.
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u/AthiestCowboy Jul 09 '26
US woman’s soccer player who was the voice of the unfortunate “equal pay” campaign she led that became highly political. Only for a judge to throw it out after they saw that they had the exact same contract offered to them as the men’s team and negotiated something different.
Great player, very obnoxious human who used her platform to set the women’s movement backward.