USSF offers men’s, women’s teams identical contracts

NEW YORK - The US Soccer Federation (USSF) announced on Tuesday that it has offered the respective players’ unions for the U.S. women’s national team and the US men’s side identical proposals for a new collective bargaining agreement.

In a statement, the USSF said that this was done with the goal of aligning the men’s and women’s senior national teams under ‘a single collective bargaining agreement (CBA) structure’.

“This proposal will ensure that USWNT and USMNT players remain among the highest paid senior national team players in the world, while providing a revenue sharing structure that would allow all parties to begin anew and share collectively in the opportunity that combined investment in the future of US Soccer will deliver over the course of a new CBA,” the statement read.

More critically, the USSF said in its statement that it will not agree to a CBA with either union that doesn’t ‘take the important step of equalising FIFA World Cup prize money’. That issue has been a sticking point with players on the USWNT, 28 of which are currently engaged in a lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over violations of the Equal Pay Act.

FIFA has proposed awarding US$440 million in prize money to teams that take part in the men’s 2022 World Cup, up from US$400 million in 2018. The proposed prize money for the 2023 Women’s World Cup is US$60 million, up from US$38 million in 2019, but still far behind the men’s tournament. That difference in compensation forms one plank of the USWNT’s equal pay claims.