http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/socce...swnt-wage-inequality-complaint-040842791.html Here's a little more from the other side. I wish there was a way to go after Fifa on this. There's no denying the USfed has been the world leader in woman's soccer and while I think the WNT should get more, i think the fed has always championed this team. Fifa on the other hand.....is stuck in the stone ages, which is represented in the less than 10 percent difference in funds payed out to the WWC.
There's two things to remember. In any sort of negotiation or arbitration, each side is going to skew the numbers in an attempt to make their case. Numbers, like statistics can be very misleading depending on context. The other thing is while it's a good point that 2015 catches WNT on the up tick and MNT heading the other way, when ur negotiating something that extends into the future, the current trend is certainly important. While it's fair to look at this in 4 year cycles, u can bet if this had been a down year for the WNT the USSF would have used it as a bargaining point regardless of any gains over the length of the cycle.
This has been mentioned a few times up thread but the US fed is a non profit entity. There seems to be a dispute brewing between the two parties about what the actual revenue numbers are and/or the formula for arriving at the figures. My question is ...why does it even matter? How is the US Soccer Fed different from the US Tennis association, USA Swimming, USA Gymnastics, or USA Figure Skating? All of them are non profit. All of them presumably have budget constraints in relation to their revenue. Why is it that national sports governing bodies for female dominant sports like Figure Skating and Gymnastics have gender parity in terms of funding and rewarding their athletes? But US Soccer does not? Ever heard of a swimmer named Katie Meili? She's a relatively unknown and unheralded breaststroke swimmer on the US national team. Yet as a member of the women's senior national team she receives the same funding from USA Swimming as Michael Phelps. Obviously Meili doesn't generate anywhere near the same level of interest, attention, or revenue for USA Swimming as Phelps does. But then that's not the point is it? Of course, professional athletes like Phelps can collect their value on the market in the form of endorsements, likewise for senior team soccer players not named Mallory Pugh. Christine Brennan, certainly not my favorite journalist, but she brings up a valid point: "U.S. Figure Skating has always given its male stars the same prize money (referencing USSF bonus structure not FIFA) as its female stars even though the women are by far the top draw in the sport. A top USFS official told me several years ago that was because the organization wanted to encourage boys to become figure skaters too. In other words, the money made a statement about how USFS wanted to try to grow its sport. Money is many things. Among them, it can be a message. It’s a signal, a sign from a national governing body of just how important girls and young women, in this case, are to the organization and to the sport at large." http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...-lloyd-alex-morgan-powerful-message/82466586/ The Mission Statement on the USSF's website is pretty clear. Nowhere in that statement is there any mention of compensation based on revenue value. Nowhere is there any mention of "market value." This is supposedly a non profit organization so why would there be? Allegedly their mission is to develop and expand the sport, to be a "national model." Yet Gulati is singing a different tune. What exactly is their fiduciary responsibility here? Balancing a budget and being "cost effective" doesn't require imbalanced funding structures. Gulati says correlating funding to revenue is key. He sounds more like a soybean futures speculator than someone tasked with being custodian of a sport he is expected to grow and develop.
The problem with looking at Tennis, Skating, Swimming etc is that their big events r held together so it's very hard to break out what the men and women r generating. If FIFA held the WC together on one site I still doubt they would award equal prize money.
The women keep saying we get paid less than the men, and our men suck. Rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, the disparity in success can be largely attributed to the fact that the USSF spends wayyyyyyyyy more on women's soccer than any other federation, and wayyyyyyyy less on men's soccer than the major federations. Their pointing to the disparity of success, is really pointing to a disparity in investment. But, ultimately, if they want the same structure as the men - pay to play - I am all for it. You get paid when you get called in. I've felt that the WNT was handcuffed by the pay structure. Old players get called in over younger players, because their already being paid and the young ones aren't. I'm all for pay to play for the women.
Yeah, and the two different payment styles messes up an easily measurable, tit for tat, assessment of the whole situation. I wouldn't mind seeing USSF going to a universal payment system, which would likely be the bonus system the men are under, so the funds can be easily measured and these types of arguments can be done with.
With Ellis as the coach for the foreseeable future. They have a certain security that veterans did not have with Sermanni.
I agree wholeheartedly. It seems that they want it both ways. A contract that guarantees their employment and lots of money like the men. Well ladies, you can't have it both ways. I disapprove of the contract system that the USWNT enjoys because it limits choices that the Head Coach can bring into camp or games. That's why you have some players playing into their mid-upper thirties and now forties. They're under contract and you are forced to play them. IMO, a generation of good players was missed last cycle because Ab Ladies, if you want to be paid well, like the men, get rid of the contract and get paid game by game just like the men. No entitlements, no grouping together into cliques. If you are good enough, the coach will bring you in, if you are not or too old too even run up and down half the field then you don't get called in and you don't get paid. Period. Oh yea, one more thing, I know it's all about the money and gate receipts but no more cult of personality forced playing time, please. Just because a bunch of screaming little girls and their soccer mom and dads want to see a popular player play and then later get autographs, it doesn't mean she has to play if she is out of form or if there is someone better then her. I'm tire of that.
So would Rapinoe prefer A)~$100k plus benefits this year for rehabbing or B)$826,359 paid last year (winning the WC) I'll take option B! Option B including bonuses for qualifying for WC, points in group stage, pay per game, second round advancement, and 1st place bonus. Admittedly, this doesn't help Dunn so much. Edit: Just want to point out, I'm not a proponent of this kind of pay change for the women. Just showing that the question was probably not getting the answer originally assumed.
Complete speculation on your part and completely misses the central point. Why does it matter what they generate? What is the purpose of the US Soccer Federation. What is the mission? Men are compensated well for their market "value" outside the funding structure of US Soccer. But the business model mindset seems peculiarly entrenched among several posters here anyway.
Officially it was because he did not provide the right structure and he was to casual in style. http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-comme...king-dismissal-uswnt-coach-tom-sermanni-espnw He also was bringing in a lot of young players into camp. I think he was forced out. Others will go with the provided reason.
I dont think u ever get them on the same system but I agree u need to have both systems comparable so that u can easily see what each team is getting and why as opposed the current mess where neither side can even agree on the numbers.
I still dont think Ellis is making these decision. It seems to me that roster decisions r made by committee with marketing having a huge input on personnel.
I think in any arbitration/negotiation u need to have short memories. Lots of things get thrown out there that no one would ever say except in these types of situations.
so then no benefits, no health coverage and pregnancy leave for the women? do they want what's fair or what equals the men? and its' easy to make the argument that because professional leagues are soo different, the female players will not get the same coverage the men do in their leagues if this is the case.
All those non-salary/bonus benefits have a $ value. I wonder if the suit is part of an attempt to simply greatly raise the payouts under the CBAs, including for '16, than to change the nature of the CBA to one similar to the MNT. In the end, the union can claim that over the life a women's CBA the combinations of higher base salaries, bonuses and benefits would be potentially be similar in $ terms to what the men under their CBA would possibly earn from USSF.
No kidding, amusing how she's vocal about this on SM. Girl, Ellis is trying get rid of your ass as soon as she can. Equal pay similar to men will end your life time contract. She will be making nothing with the rest of NWSL players.
It's very interesting reading how different publications and journalists are covering this story, granted most are not WNT fans. What's being discussed is important, but often not the whole story, or really even true. People on this board are more educated on this top than most journalists. I'm reading about the discrepancy between Pia and Bradley's income from 2010, which is actually pretty extreme, 800+k to 200+k. But the article fails to mention Bob was one of the lowest paid Men's national team coaches in the world, while Pia was one of the highest paid Wnt coach in the world at the time and ended up the highest. Or, say, the NYT "graph" that came out yesterday discusses bonuses of the Men's and Woman's WC, yet fails to mention this money is coming from FIFA and not the Fed. So it assumes the money is just coming from the fed. When in reality the Fed gave the woman 90% of the winning and the men got under 50% of their WC winnings. journalism is so bad these days.
I think there would be an exception in her case, since she was hurt on the job with the national team. You can't get into the business of having employees getting injured on the job, then turning to them and saying "Tough Sh%#".
the men's insurance is different than women's. From what Foudy said, men don't have the same coverage through the fed as the woman, since they are covered by their clubs.