US women’s soccer equal pay victory decades in the making

The U.S. women’s national team has not only been wildly successful on the field, the players have also been unabashedly outspoken, using their platform to advocate for equal rights for themselves and others.

The team’s efforts to secure equitable pay finally came to fruition this week. The four-time Women’s World Cup winners reached a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer that gives them the same pay as their male counterparts.

But the historic milestone wasn’t achieved just because the women filed a discrimination lawsuit in 2019 or complained to the federal

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2016. It was decades in the making.

Former goalkeeper Briana Scurry, who started on the team that won the 1999 World Cup, said the job of a national team player is first to be a skilled player and a great teammate. But there’s always been another unspoken component.

“Part two is you have to understand that there is a standard of doing more than just being a footballer, you have to push the envelope further and further, raise the bar in terms of equality,” Scurry said. “It was so clear to all of us back then that we deserved so much more than we were getting when we were the ones winning

World Cups and Olympic Games, and bringing great notoriety to soccer in this country.”

⏩ In 1995, a year before the Atlanta Games became the first Olympics to include women’s soccer, a group of nine players, including Scurry, Michelle Akers, Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly, sat out of a training camp in a dispute over bonuses.

⏩ Following the team’s memorable 1999 World Cup victory at the Rose Bowl, 20 of the team’s players refused to play in a tournament in Australia. That led to the team’s first collective bargaining agreement.

Akers, who is in the National Soccer Hall of Fame, said back when the national team was founded in the 1980s, the players got a $10 per diem and had to wear their own cleats in games. They were given hand-medown uniforms from the men’s team.

Out of necessity, it became “part of the team’s DNA” for the players to advocate for themselves off the field, Akers said.

“That’s also a part of playing for the U.S. National Team, you’re representing your country, you’re representing your family, your teammates, and you’re out there giving everything you have to be the best you can be — and that doesn’t just mean as a soccer player, it means as a person and it means how you interact and work to make the world better,” she said.