For the past 21 years the U.S. women’s soccer team has won four Olympic gold medals and four World Cups. The men’s team has won none. Men did not even quality for the past three Olympics, nor the 2018 World Cup. Nada!
Yet women players were paid a pittance – for instance a World Cup men’s player earns $67,000 and a women’s player earns just $37,500 – until yesterday.
U.S. Soccer agreed to pay $22 million to the 28 players who filed a gender discrimination suit and a further $2 million to a charitable fund for girls’ and women’s soccer. It also promised to pay men and women at an equal rate going forward.
And, as Megan Rapinoe said, “This is the first step, not the last step.”
Jean