HOUSE APPROVES EQUAL PAY
The House has passed a bill that ensures equal compensation for U.S. women competing in international events, a piece of legislation that came out of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s long battle to be paid as much as the men.
The Equal Pay for Team USA Act, passed late Wednesday, will require all athletes representing the United States in global competition to receive equal pay and benefits in their sport, regardless of gender. It covers America’s 50-plus national sports and requires the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to handle oversight.
The bill had earlier passed the Senate with unanimous support. It now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.
In a speech Wednesday night on the Senate floor, Sen. Maria Cantwell (DWash.), who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), called the bill a fitting way to cap off 2022, which marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark law that promoted gender equity in sports.
“I want to thank heroes like Megan Rapinoe and (San Diego Wave star) Alex Morgan, who brought that case against U.S. Soccer,” Cantwell said of the American soccer stars, whose World Cup victory in 2019 provided the backdrop for the start of the effort. “U.S. women’s soccer led the charge after winning the World Cup and making it clear to everyone that women athletes deserve equal pay.”
The bill stems from a federal gender discrimination lawsuit the U.S. women filed against U.S. Soccer in 2019. Earlier this year, the women signed a new collective bargaining agreement that included identical pay structures for men and women and equitable distribution of World Cup prize money.
Over the past decade, most Olympic sports in the
U.S. have met USOPC standards regarding equal compensation.
But there remained inequities between the men’s and women’s soccer teams — whose roles in international events, such as the World Cup, resulted in unequal pay structures and different oversight — that led legislators to seek to enshrine those standards into law.
“By sending this legislation to the president, both houses have sent a clear message that this is the standard for all national teams in all sports and it underscores the importance of working with our athletes to achieve equal pay including equalizing international prize money,” U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement announcing the bill’s passage.
Volleyball
After leading the Toreros to the Final Four in their most successful season ever and receiving the AVCA National Coach of the Year award last week, University
of San Diego volleyball head coach Jennifer Petrie was named the VolleyballMag.com National Coach of the Year, the publication announced.
It’s Petrie’s first such award from VolleyballMag.com, and it comes after she was named both the AVCA Pacific South Region Coach of the Year and the West Coast Conference Coach of the Year, accolades she has now received three and seven times, respectively.
Hockey
The San Diego Gulls’ struggles continued with a 6-2 loss at Tucson, extending their franchise-record losing streak to 12 games with the American Hockey League road defeat. BenoitOlivier Groulx and Brayden Tracey scored the Gulls’ goals. The two teams meet again tonight at Tucson.
Soccer
Winning the World Cup was not enough to lift Argentina atop the FIFA world rankings.
Brazil, eliminated in the quarterfinals by Croatia, keeps the No. 1 position ahead of the new champion.
Argentina moved up one place to No. 2 and beaten finalist France also rose one to No. 3. Surprise semifinalist Morocco is the bestplaced African nation at No. 11.
The United States at No. 13 is the best of the CONCACAF region teams, rising three places.
France coach Didier Deschamps will meet with French soccer federation president Noel Le Graet next week to discuss a new contract. Deschamps has been in charge for 10 years.
The Polish soccer association says it will not extend the contract of national coach Czeslaw Michniewicz after an analysis of the team’s performance at the World Cup in Qatar.
Erling Haaland scored his 24th goal of the season but it was Nathan Ake’s first that clinched Manchester City’s 3-2 win over Liverpool in the English League Cup.
Winter sports
Swiss skier Daniel Yule won the night World Cup slalom race on the steep and icy Canalone Miramonti course in Italy for the third time, surging up from fourth place after the opening run with a flawless second trip down.
Also
Men can compete in Olympic artistic swimming for the first time at the 2024 Paris Games.
Adding men to the sport that was once known as synchronized swimming will leave rhythmic gymnastics as the last women-only event on the Summer Games program.
Frustrated with corruption allegations and an adversarial relationship with the organization that runs global boxing, the International Olympic Committee is considering dropping the sport from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.