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U.S. Soccer says women’s team was paid more than men

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U.S. Soccer just handed its own gender-pay lawsuit a counter-argument, and the numbers are messier than they look.

Four months into a federal discrimination suit brought by 28 members of the U.S. Women’s National Team, the governing body fighting them in court tried a new tack: an open letter arguing the plaintiffs were actually paid more than the men’s team for most of the past decade. U.S. Soccer President Carlos Cordeiro released the letter, along with a supporting fact sheet, on July 29, 2019 — days after the USWNT returned home from lifting the World Cup and while both sides were preparing for court-ordered mediation. The women’s side wasted no time calling it a smokescreen.

• U.S. Soccer’s fact sheet claims it paid the USWNT $34.1 million in salaries and game bonuses from 2010 through 2018, compared with $26.4 million paid to the men’s national team over the same span — figures that exclude medical, dental, and retirement benefits provided exclusively to the women.
• The federation also says that from 2009 to 2019, the men’s team generated $185.7 million in revenue over 191 games while the women’s team generated $101.3 million over 238 games.
• USWNT players’ spokesperson Molly Levinson called the letter a “sad attempt” and a “ruse,” arguing the comparison ignores that the women played dozens more matches and won back-to-back World Cups while earning less per win, tie, or appearance than the men.

Cordeiro’s Case

Cordeiro’s letter leans on cumulative dollar totals rather than per-game math. According to the federation, the $34.1 million paid to women versus $26.4 million paid to men between 2010 and 2018 shows the USWNT hasn’t been shortchanged in raw compensation, even before factoring in benefits the men’s roster doesn’t receive at all. The letter arrived as U.S. Soccer and the players’ lawyers headed toward mediation over the March 2019 lawsuit, which accuses the federation of unequal pay and inferior working conditions and seeks back pay and damages.

Two Different Pay Structures

The gap in how each roster gets paid is at the center of the dispute. USWNT players negotiated a collective bargaining agreement built around a $100,000 annual base salary plus $67,500 to $72,500 tied to their play in the National Women’s Soccer League, on top of per-game bonuses. Men’s national team players get no guaranteed base salary at all — they’re paid strictly for call-ups, appearances, and performance bonuses, which run higher per game than what the women receive. That structural difference is exactly why Cordeiro’s aggregate numbers and Levinson’s per-game numbers can both be technically accurate while telling opposite stories.

Levinson’s Rebuttal

The players’ camp didn’t let the letter sit unanswered. Levinson argued that stacking up nine years of cumulative pay obscures the real comparison, since the women’s team played 238 games to the men’s 191 and still generated $84 million less in revenue by U.S. Soccer’s own figures — a gap the federation’s letter used as part of its justification for the pay structure.

Cordeiro’s letter is a “sad attempt” and a “ruse” to undercut the goodwill the USWNT built by winning the World Cup, Levinson said.

Levinson’s central point was arithmetic: for any single win, tie, or game played, male players collected significantly bigger bonuses and match fees than their female counterparts did for the same result. That’s the argument the players’ side plans to carry into mediation and, if needed, into a courtroom, a dispute that fits into the wider run of gender-equity fights playing out across U.S. institutions this year.

Future Strategic Priorities

Both sides were expected to sit down for court-supervised mediation on the heels of Cordeiro’s letter, with the federation betting its balance-sheet framing holds up better in a room with lawyers than it did in the press. Given how politically charged the equal-pay fight had already become — drawing commentary from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — neither U.S. Soccer nor the 28 plaintiffs showed any sign of backing off their numbers before mediation even started.