US equal-pay row
Dispute tears US federation apart
There was something different about the USA women’s team when they ran out before the SheBelieves Cup game with Japan in Texas. Their warm-up shirts were inside out. This rendered the badge of governing body United States Soccer Federation (USSF) invisible but, because of the stitching, still revealed the badge outline and the four stars above it – one for each Women’s World Cup success.
The whole squad, not just the starting line-up, then posed for a pre-match photo in the inside-out shirts, a photo subsequently tweeted out by some of the players. As protests go it was mightily effective. The following day the president
“I don’t think a trial is good for either party or for soccer” Cindy Parlow Cone
of USSF, Carlos Cordeiro, resigned.
The kit change was a squad response to newly released filings from their gender discrimination case against USSF which revealed the federation’s strategy was to argue the women were being paid less than the men’s team because they had “less skill, ability and responsibility”.
This was a lawyer’s argument. To win a suit under the Equal Pay Act the US women’s team have to prove their work is sufficiently equal to the men’s. USSF’s legal strategy was to deny that claim.
This may have made sense legally, but in the wider court of public opinion it was incendiary. The players were furious and it soon became clear USSF’s tactic was wildly out of step with the national mood.
BreakingT, a sports clothing company, produced a T-shirt licensed by the USWNT Players Association called “Four Stars Only” based on the inside-out shirt and it quickly became their fastest-selling item, shifting more than 5,000 copies in the first 24 hours.
The American Outlaws, the longestablished 30,000-strong group of hardcore supporters of both male and female US teams, issued a statement describing USSF’s argument that the women’s soccer side was inferior to the men’s as “objectionable and disappointing”. Also weighing in on the USWNT’s side, perhaps more worrying for USSF, were a series of major sponsors.
MLS commissioner and USSF board member Don Garber, the Athletes’ Council – a body of past and present US internationals which had backed Cordeiro’s 2018 election – and Cordeiro’s vice-president Cindy Parlow Cone also criticised the strategy and language.
Cordeiro, who had seemed the living embodiment of the American dream having arrived in the US as a 15-yearold immigrant son of a widowed mother then becoming a Harvard graduate and Goldman Sachs executive, fell on his sword. How much he was individually responsible for the strategy is unclear
– he said he had not “fully reviewed the filing” – but he had exacerbated an already bitter dispute when, on International Women’s Day, he released a letter arguing the federation had already offered an equal-pay deal. The players dismissed this as riddled with falsehoods. Trust between them had broken down.
Parlow Cone, a member of the 1999 World Cup-winning team, took over. She is the first woman to hold the influential but unpaid position and will remain in the role until February 2021. She is joined at the helm by a new CEO, Will Wilson, who has been a players’ agent working in NFL but has past experience with USSF’s marketing partner.
Their in-box is full. Pressing concerns include the need to ensure the men’s team qualify for Qatar 2022 after missing out on the 2018 World Cup, laying the groundwork for the north American joint-hosting of the 2026 men’s World Cup, and overseeing a coaching structure that has needed rebuilding, in part due to an edict that all age-group coaches move to Chicago.
But a priority, they stressed in their first joint appearance, is settling the legal case with the USWNT and restoring trust. “I don’t think a trial is good for either party or for soccer,” said Parlow Cone. “I’m hopeful that we can find a resolution before this goes to trial.” Wilson added: “I would echo that. It’s a priority, and finding a solution would be the best way to go forward.”
That will involve USSF making a financial settlement. The only question is how much. The players are seeking $67million in back pay and damages plus punitive damages, and a commitment to equal pay going forward. The figures have been arrived at by assessing what the women would have earned in recent years were they paid the same as the men.
Parlow Cone has officially withdrawn the controversial claim that the men’s game is superior, calling it “offensive”. But USSF still argues, more reasonably, the pay disparity is largely because rewards at the men’s World Cup are far greater than the women’s and that is down to
FIFA, not USSF. A $67m award, they argue, would cripple their ability to fund youth and other programmes.
It is true that the dispute is not like for like. The men are primarily paid by their clubs while the women who play in NWSL – usually all of them – have their salaries underwritten by USSF. But they also play far more internationals than the men, 27 to 15 in the last year, and generate significant income doing so, not least as they almost always play at home. And they are far more successful, with Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd both as high-profile as any male US player.
The case, filed in March last year, is due for trial in Los Angeles on May 5 but that date is in jeopardy due to restrictions imposed by the coronavirus. Delay may provide time for a settlement.
While the players are likely to accept much less than $67m, a deal would still be a victory for Rapinoe, Lloyd and co even more significant than their World Cup triumph in France last summer.