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Archive for February 23, 2022

Feb. 23, 2022 — A temporary peace in women’s soccer

February 23, 2022 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged:

Yesterday, in a court filing in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, the U.S. Soccer Federation and a group of players with the U.S. women’s national soccer team announced a settlement in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The players first filed the lawsuit in March 2019, under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The suit focused on gender discrimination over pay and working conditions.

The suit was pushed a bit by a ruling that judge Gary Klausner had made, that U.S. Soccer had not underpaid the women on the national team, at least on a per-game basis. I think that’s why the players settled for only a third of the total in the original suit. The suit will pay the 28 players in the class-action suit a total of $22 million, with a $2 million sum being put into an account for players to use for charitable efforts related to women’s and girls’ soccer.

The thing is, while the settlement is a tacit admission of a major pay gap, there should be back pay for more than just the Rapinoes and Morgans of the world. Dozens of players who have worn the U.S. shirt were subject to an uneven pay structure for four decades.

Also, this entire settlement isn’t final. It is contingent upon a new collective bargaining agreement being ratified by the players on the USWNT. That hasn’t happened yet, and it could be an interesting bargaining ploy as the U.S. has a major win-and-in tournament this summer in Mexico. The U.S. needs to win the Concacaf W Championship in order to guarantee themselves not only a World Cup 2023 berth, but a 2024 Olympic berth.

If the U.S. finishes off the top of the podium, it qualifies for Australia with a top-four finish, but would have to win a playoff to get into the Olympics.

This gives the U.S. team an awful lot of leverage going into the summer. Let’s see how the negotiations evolve.

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