The U.S. Soccer Federation is being sued by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team under gender discrimination allegations

Escalating the long-running fight for gender equality within U.S Soccer, the women’s national soccer team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S Soccer Federation on March 8. The 28 team members who sued say that institutionalized gender discrimination has been present for years prior to the lawsuit, not only affecting their wages, but their coaching, training and medical treatments, just to name a few.

In some cases, these female athletes are being paid a measly 38 percent per game of what their male counterparts are earning. In the 2018 world cup, the average player on the men’s team made 75,000 dollars, whereas the average player on the women’s team made 15,000 dollars in the 2015 world cup according to the N.Y Daily news. On top of that, the bonus from FIFA, the governing body of soccer, is 1.8 million dollars to the winning women’s team, while the bonus for the winning men’s team is a staggering 9.3 million dollars. According to a statement in the lawsuit, if both teams played 20 friendlies in a year and won all of them, the female players would earn a maximum of 99,000 dollars or 4,950 dollars per game, while male player would earn an average of 263,320 dollars or 13,166 dollars per game.

Not only is this pay gap morally unjustifiable, but the women’s team has been bringing in much higher revenue for the U.S Soccer Federation than the men. According to PBS News, the women’s soccer team was projected to generate 17 million dollars of revenue in 2017, nearly doubling the revenue generated by the men’s team. This imbalance of income can only be traced back to years of gender discrimination within the professional soccer community. For their compensation, the women’s team is proposing a guaranteed salary as opposed to the play by play model like the men’s team. The players would also earn salaries for playing in the National Women’s Soccer League, paid for by the federation.

On top of complaints about wages, the women’s team argues that they do not receive the same quality of coaching, medical attention, or training opportunities as the men. Junior Mary Delaney believes that both the men’s and women’s team should be treated equally.

“I think it’s unfair that women get paid less than men soccer athletes. Both men and women work really hard to be good at the sport they love and they should both be equally paid,” said Delaney.