U.S. men’s soccer backs U.S. women

The U.S. men’s national team asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reinstate wage claims against the U.S. Soccer Federation filed by women’s national team players.

“The men stand with the women in their fight to secure the equal pay they deserve,” lawyers for the team said in a friend of the court brief filed Friday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Players led by Alex Morgan sued the USSF in March 2019, contending they have not been paid equitably under their collective bargaining agreement that runs through December 2021 compared to what the men’s team receives under its agreement that expired in December 2018. The women asked for more than $64 million in damages plus $3 million in interest under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner in Los Angeles threw out the pay claim in May 2020, ruling the women rejected a paytoplay structure similar to the one in the men’s agreement and accepted greater base salaries and benefits than the men. The women asked the 9th Circuit to overrule the trial court’s ruling and put their wage claim back on track.