US women's football team boldly embraces off-the-field activist role

Setting itself apart from other great American sports teams, the U.S. women's soccer team is embracing a front-line role in social justice causes even as it savors a fourth world championship.

The players are now world leaders in the push for gender equity in the workplace, having sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for equal pay and treatment visa-vis the men's national team. With a lesbian coach and several lesbian players, including World Cup MVP Megan Rapinoe, they're a proud symbol of LGBTQ inclusion. And they have stood firmly behind Rapinoe after she said she'd refuse to visit the White House if invited by President Donald Trump.

Far from being daunted by these off-the-field roles, the players seem to relish them.

"I feel like this team is in the midst of changing the world around us as we live, and it's just an incredible feeling," Rapinoe said after the team's 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in Sunday's title match in Lyon, France. The team won all seven of its matches, scoring 26 goals, allowing just three.

Individual athletes — notably Muhammad Ali, more recently Colin Kaepernick — have risked their careers in the past by taking political stances. Some teams in the NBA and WNBA wore warm-up outfits a few years ago protesting police brutality and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

But it's difficult to think of another high-profile U.S. team sticking its neck out, in the runup to its most important competition, the way the women's soccer team did by suing the USSF in March. The two sides have agreed to mediate the lawsuit now that the World Cup is over.

"These athletes generate more revenue and garner higher TV ratings but get paid less simply because they are women," said Molly Levinson, spokeswoman for the players in their lawsuit. "It is time for the federation to correct this once and for all."

Debra Katz, a Washington attorney who specializes in sexual harassment cases, said the U.S. team had earned global support for the causes it is embracing.

"Their message is, 'You're not going to divide us. We're united for nondiscriminatory treatment for all of us.'"

The victory in Lyon, coupled with the drive for equal pay, will further entrench the U.S. team as a symbol for female athletes elsewhere. Indeed, Title IX, the 1972 federal legislation that required equal sporting opportunities for girls and women, has benefited not only the top U.S. players but also many World Cup players from other countries who honed their skills on U.S. college teams.

For LGBTQ Americans — many of them frustrated by the lack of openly gay players in major league baseball, the NFL, NBA and NHL — the women's soccer team has been a source of pride and celebration. Two of its players, Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger, are engaged to each other. On hand as a spectator in Lyon was Rapinoe's girlfriend, WNBA star Sue Bird.

"Science is science. Gays rule," Rapinoe tweeted on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the largest U.S. LGBTQ-rights organization, Matilda Young of the Human Rights Campaign, said the impact of the team's inclusiveness would be profound.

"Young LGBTQ athletes, who all too frequently are made to feel unwelcome, have seen themselves reflected in these historymaking champions," Young said. "Having Americans from every corner of our country embrace these women who are unabashedly proud of their country and of who they are sends a powerful message not only to LGBTQ people, but to sports fans around the world that we are here, we are queer, and we just won the World Cup — again."

Congratulations to the team came from a wide array of celebrities and politicians, including Trump and many of the Democratic presidential candidates hoping to defeat him. One of them, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, swiftly arranged for the team to have a victory parade Wednesday through the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan.

"Congrats to the record breakers on the @USWNT, an incredible team that's always pushing themselves_and the rest of us_to be even better," tweeted former President Barack Obama. U.S Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat with a huge following on social media, tweeted "At this point we shouldn't even be asking for #EqualPay for the #USWMNT.

We should demand they be paid at least twice as much."

On Monday, the top Democrats in Congress invited the team to the Capitol "to celebrate their inspiring victory," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

At the National Women's Law Center in Washington, the U.S. team's victories and outspokenness were welcomed by a staff that has campaigned vigorous for equality in the workplace and on the playing field.

"This team is so dominant because they work together — they lift each other up," said Sabrina Stevens, the center's senior manager of campaign and digital strategies.

"It resonates for so many of us — women especially — to work your heart out and be so good at what do, and still not get the pay or recognition you deserve," she said. "We're rooting for them because we're rooting for ourselves."

Rapinoe fuses politics, pay and tech with World Cup win

A Women's World Cup stirred by heated debates on politics, pay and technology saw the narratives fused in Sunday's final by the undisputed and outspoken star of the tournament: Megan Rapinoe.

By opening the scoring with a penalty awarded after a video review, Rapinoe claimed a sixth goal and — thanks to three assists and playing fewer minutes — finished as the Golden Boot winner of the most-watched FIFA women's tournament.

Winning the top player prize provided the pink-haired captain renowned for her individuality and activism with a platform for both after the Americans completed their title defense with a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands.

The forward got to collect her scoring trophy before the main prize was handed out in Lyon, and revel in the adulation.

But only after the introduction of French President Emmanuel Macron and FIFA counterpart Gianni Infantino for the on-field trophy presentation was followed by boos and chants of "equal pay" — thousands taking up Rapinoe's campaign for more equitable prize money from the World Cup organizers and compensation from the U.S. federation. "A little public shame never hurt anyone," Rapinoe said with a winners' medal around her neck. "So I am down with it."

Not down with a visit to the White House, though, with Rapinoe's rejection of a post-tournament visit delivered publicly in a video that emerged during the World Cup.

"Megan should WIN first before she TALKS!" President Donald Trump responded in tweet that lit up the tournament. "Finish the job!"

When the job was finished Sunday, thanks to Rose Lavelle also scoring, only congratulations came from Trump — for the entire team.

"Great and exciting play," he tweeted. "America is proud of you all!"

In the hours before the Americans won a record fourth World Cup, Rapinoe found an advocate for the pursuit of greater pay equality in the French president.

"We need to go progressively toward that," Macron said. "We should progressively converge."

That is undermined by the prize money for the men's World Cup in 2022 jumping to $440 million when the women's teams will only split $60 million in 2023.

This time, it is only half that. Victory gave the Americans $4 million — double the amount earned four years ago — as part of a $30 million prize pot but lagging the $38 million earned by France for lifting the men's trophy last July in Moscow.

On the eve of the final, sitting in the same news conference position occupied by Infantino a day earlier, Rapinoe rebuked the head of soccer's governing body for disrespecting women as the prize-money gulf widens with the winners of the men's World Cups. Rapinoe chose not to confront Infantino on the field.

"There was a wry smile, for sure," she said. "He knows. He did say we'll have a conversation or something. I said, 'I'd love to.'"

Rapinoe has something to be thankful to Infantino for: the introduction of VAR, which has had a disruptive debut in women's soccer as referees and players have adjusted to the new technology.

Replays confirmed Dutch defender Stefanie van der Gragt's high challenge on striker Alex Morgan and Rapinoe took on penalty duties for her 50th international goal.

"VAR wouldn't miss the final, she had to show up somewhere," Rapinoe said. "It has gotten a lot of stick in the tournament. There's some inconsistencies but this is the first time all these referees have actually used it. So overall I think it's been pretty good."

What has been less of a success were FIFA's efforts at attracting fans to some games. FIFA knows it has to do more to raise attendance.

The sellout crowd of 58,000 on Sunday was a rarity. In a month when FIFA challenged the world to "Dare to Shine," efforts were dimmed by marketing mishaps around ticket promotions that saw swathes of empty seats in stadiums.

The choice of venue will be scrutinized more closely with FIFA now realizing going to stronger soccer cities — rather than Montpellier and Nice — could have produced fuller stadiums.