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US women’s national soccer team to get same pay as the men

Chicago, May 18 (EFE).- The United States Soccer Federation and the unions representing the men’s and women’s national teams announced Wednesday a new set of collective bargaining agreements that place male and female players on equal footing in terms of pay.

“There’s equalization of World Cup prize money, identical financial terms, including identical game payments, identical revenue sharing for both teams, so identical in every aspect on that front,” US Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone said.

She said that the contracts, which run through 2028, “will ensure that US Soccer’s Senior National Team players remain among the highest paid in the world.”

The parties agreed that any World Cup prize money received by US Soccer is to be pooled by the women’s and men’s teams – USWNT and USMNT, respectively – with equal shares going to each player.

The France men’s squad that won the 2018 World Cup received $38 million, compared with the $4 million that the USWNT got

More significant, perhaps, is the provision for a 50-50 split between the USWNT and the USMNT of all broadcast and sponsorship revenue.

“The accomplishments in this CBA (collective bargaining agreement) are a testament to the incredible efforts of WNT players on and off the field,” USWNT player association head Becky Sauerbrunn said.

Wednesday’s announcement marked the culmination of a process that began in 2016, when Sauerbrunn and four other WNT members, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Hope Solo, and Carli Lloyd, filed a discrimination complaint against US Soccer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The five current and former players (Solo and Lloyd retired from the WNT) agreed in February to settle the complaint in exchange for $24 million and a commitment to enshrine pay equity in the next contracts.

“They said equal pay for men and women was not possible, but that did not stop us and we went ahead and achieved it,” MNT member Walker Zimmerman, who is part of the US National Soccer Team Players Association leadership group, said.

The US women have won the Women’s World Cup four times since the competition was launched in 1991, while their male counterparts failed even to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. EFE

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