Judge OKs partial settlement in USWNT lawsuit
A federal judge granted a settlement in the United States women’s national team’s equal pay lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation this week.
The partial settlement — approved Monday by R. Gary Klausner, a U.S. District Judge from the Central District of California — granted the women’s players equal access to working conditions and resources such as charter flights, venue selection, support staff and hotel accommodations.
“We are pleased that the court has approved the equal working conditions that the USWNT Players have fought for many years to achieve,” wrote Molly Levinson, the spokesperson for the U.S. women’s national team players association. “Finally, giving these athletes access to facilities, training, care, and professional support is the next step needed in the long and hard work to grow the game of women’s football.”
The players will now focus on appealing Klausner’s original ruling on a portion of the lawsuit dedicated to equal pay.
When they filed the lawsuit in 2019, the players based their argument on two grounds — workplace conditions discrimination that violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and equal pay discrimination that violated the Equal Pay Act.
The judge sided with the federation in May on the section of the suit focused on equal pay. In his decision, Klausner wrote that he believed the suit had “not demonstrated a triable issue that WNT players are paid less than MNT players.”
“Now that this is behind us, we intend to appeal the Court’s equal pay decision, which does not account for the fact that women players have been paid at lesser rates than men who do the same job,” Levinson wrote.
“We are committed as ever to our work to achieve the equal pay that we legally deserve and our focus is on the future and ensuring we leave the game a better place for the next generation of women who will play for this team and our country.”
U.S. Soccer said in a statement issued Monday it hopes to resolve the suit “outside of the court system.”
“U.S. Soccer is 100 percent committed to equal pay,” the federation statement read. “We have offered the USWNT the identical compensation provided to our men’s players for all matches controlled by U.S. Soccer. Unfortunately, the USWNT has not accepted our offer or our long-standing invitation to meet to try to find a resolution unless U.S. Soccer first agrees to make up the difference between the Men’s and Women’s World Cup prize money, which is determined, controlled and paid for by FIFA.”
World Cup prize money is payed through FIFA, which offers steeply different prize money for the two tournaments.
The U.S. women’s national team earned $30 million in prize money for winning the 2019 women’s World Cup, which is only 7.5% of the total payout awarded by FIFA to the French national team that won the 2018 men’s World Cup.
U.S. Soccer has seen major turnover since the start of the U.S. women’s national team’s lawsuit, prompted by the resignation of former president Carlos Cordeiro following the release of a controversial court filing that disparaged the women’s team.
Cindy Parlow Cone — a member of the historic 1999 U.S. World Cup team — since took over as president.
Parlow Cone said in a statement Monday she hopes to pave the way toward a more civil solution between the two parties.
“I remain hopeful that the women will be willing to sit down and talk through this with us,” Parlow Cone said. “We have a whole new leadership team at U.S. Soccer since this litigation started. We’re very collaborative, we’re open to new ideas, we want to think outside the box with the USWNT and see if we can find solutions.
But the first part of that is sitting down and talking and communicating and trying to work through this.”