United States Soccer Federation President Carlos Cordeiro attempted to shut down some of the ‘Equal Pay’ chatter coming from the United States Women’s National Team regarding their lawsuit issued against their governing body.
Cordeiro penned an open letter in response to the USWNT suing the US Soccer federation for gender discrimination, in a notable case that has the biggest stars of the women’s game claiming they make less money than their male counterparts, despite enjoying much more success nationally.
Cordeiro led off the letter with a pretty emphatic point that the US Women's actually get paid MORE than the US Men.
"U.S. Soccer has, over the past decade, paid our Women’s National Team more than our Men’s National Team in salaries and game bonuses, and we continue to make unprecedented investments in our women’s program,” Cordeiro said. “From 2010 through 2018, U.S. Soccer paid our women $34.1 million in salaries and game bonuses and we paid our men $26.4 million -- not counting the significant additional value of various benefits that our women’s players receive but which our men do not.”
In regards to some of the media reports regarding the United States women bringing in more revenue than the men, Cordeiro shot holes through that argument as well.
"From 2009 through 2019 -- a timeframe that includes two Women’s World Cup championships -- the Women’s National Team has earned gross revenue of $101.3 million over 238 games, for an average of $425,446 per game, and the Men’s National Team has earned gross revenue of $185.7 million over 191 games, for an average of $972,147 per game."
To add even more insult to injury, Cordeiro then said the US Women were actually running in the red when it came to their overall net profit.
"More specifically, WNT games have generated a net profit (ticket revenues minus event expenses) in only two years (2016 and 2017). Across the entire 11-year period, WNT games generated a net loss of $27.5 million."
One of the US women’s biggest gripes was the fact they received a $4 million split bonus for winning the World Cup, whereas the men’s winners, France, earned a $38 million split.
Cordeiro pointed out that the US Men have an entirely different collective bargaining agreement than the US Women, saying the women receive higher guaranteed salaries, but the men have larger benefit packages because of the incredibly lucrative value of the men’s World Cup, which took in more than $6 billion in the summer of 2018, compared to roughly $130 million for the women’s World Cup this past June.