Mayra Madrigal
The United States National Team agreed on equal pay between men and women this Wednesday, in what was a historic negotiation.
The United States Soccer Federation met with the country’s players’ associations to finalize the collective agreement that indicates that men and women who work in professional soccer in the United States will have equal pay.
The president of the American soccer federation Cindy Parlow Cone spoke about what happened:
“This is a truly historic moment. These agreements have changed the game forever here in the United States and have the potential to change the game around the world.”
The terms of the United States Men’s and Women’s National Team’s historic collective bargaining agreements, known as the USMNT and USWNT, respectively, include equal compensation for all competitions and the launch of an identical commercial revenue-sharing mechanism for both national teams.
This agreement is unprecedented in the world, so it is normal that from now on the eyes are on both the Federation and the United States National Team, since they are an example to follow for the rest of the world.
The USMNT and the USWNT will receive identical prizes for their participation in World Cups organized by FIFA. Although it must be remembered that in this, the women of the United States National Team have an advantage, since they have been world champions four times, 1991, 1999, 2015, and 2019, while the men have never lifted a World Cup.
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The members of the United States National Team had made this request for equal pay, since they considered it unfair that the men’s team had received $9 million dollars for the pass to the round of 16 of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, while they received only $4 million dollars for having been world champions in the 2019 contest.
The statement issued by the Federation of the United States points out these important points:
“For friendly matches, USWNT and USMNT players will be paid identical roster fees and performance pay based on match result and opponent rank, with identical tier structures. Players not on the game’s roster will earn the equivalent of an appearance fee for their participation in a national team camp.
The collective bargaining agreements stipulate that USWNT players will no longer receive guaranteed salaries, and those playing in the NWSL will no longer have their NWSL salaries paid by the federation.”
“For non-World Cup tournaments, players from both teams will earn an equal amount of the total prize money paid when both teams participate in the same competition.
The federation will pay USWNT and USMNT players a portion of the revenue from tickets sold at federation-controlled home games and a bonus amount for those games that are sold out.”
