5 top wnt players accuse ussf of wage discrimination

Unless USSF has a new Men's coach already lined up, how long will that process take and USSF gets back to discuss and settle a new CBA?

 

USSF is having a press conference tomorrow and multiple sources say that press conference is to announce Bruce Arena as the new USMNT head coach.. In fact, there were sources saying that Arena was contacted after the loss to Mexico that if the USMNT loss the Costa Rica game, Arena would be replacing him in short order.

 

What if the women don't agree? The 25 under contract may be irate the other couple hundred NWSL/college players will be delighted. I have said this before but I am not always sure our top 25 are under contract and many have stayed on well past their usefulness to the USWNT. A completely open player pool would be a win for US soccer fans.

 

The taxpayer that pays for federally funded university programs. We are the best, and have been the best in no small part due to the huge advantages WOSO gets through title IX mandated funding.

They act like their accomplishmment is some massive thing when in reality it is about par. We are the best because we spend exponentially more on players here.

We gave them an entitlement and now they feel entitled I guess I should not be surpirsed. I am basically offended by how they are trying to make this some gender issue instead of facing the reality that WoSo is not the economical engine that mens soccer is. Their argument is based on deception and I don't like people so arrogant they think we are so stupid as to not see through their lie. I am also angry at 60 mins for not understanding both sides of the story before they presented such a biased view.

 

The same dynamic explains the rapid growth of beach volleyball. Two players is easier to find than 12 (indoor teams of 6 need 12 to survive a tournament), hence tiny nations with no tradition in indoor volleyball are legitimate powers in beach (and can realistically aspire to become one).

 

Shhh... he's on a roll...

 

Those other teams are actual National Teams and not a traveling circus with a sense of entitlement WNT soccer thnk that playing for your country is your actual job and not playing for your club team, they are wrong. What they are doing is showing the poor economics of WoSo, that fuel their sense of entitlement. Those other teams understand what a national team means. WNT Basketball never lose major competitions but they know their actual job is for their clubs, they get paid by the WNBA and then also play in foreign leagues where a player like Taurasi can make close to a million yr and that club pay her not to play in WNBA to keep her fresh.

 

huh? taxpayers?

 

I think he's referring to Title IX and scholarship allocation requirements.

...which I'm pretty sure was clarified at least twice before after people said "huh? taxpayers?"

(OK, once, but it's on this very page!)

 

ooh..i c. that's really reaching though.

 

Maybe. But I can see the argument.

 

Try to articulate it?

It gets pretty foggy pretty quickly when I do anyway, because y'know, Title IX doesn't actually allocate any tax money. It creates rules as to who can receive such allocation for any educational purpose-- but that's a little like saying engineers are subsidized by taxpayers, or politicians, or pro football players...

 

It's not my argument and I'm not terribly convinced of it.

That's a fair point, but that also can be seen to be a de facto subsidy - if you squint a bit. I think a big part of the issue is that Title IX is almost entirely focused on collegiate (and high school) athletics even though the law is supposed to apply to all educational opportunities, though that's a slightly different argument in my view.

 

But he doesn't seem to be advocating an end to Title IX when he says "let them sink or swim on their own," he seems to be advocating the Fed letting their club teams be their whole or main income. And at that level any subsidizing they are getting from the taxpayer is way round Robin Hood's barn...

 

I don't know. Maybe we should ask him?

 

Isn't it kind of like saying the government subsidizes everything because, if you break federal law, you go to jail?

 

If you have some hope of getting a straight answer out of him, BMG.

Well, there is a cash flow somewhere in the picture , which there isn't necessarily in all federal laws.

And Timon is kind of a hawk on any gov't influence on cash flow, so he's not as quick to declare a point about a gov't influenced cash flow a non sequitur as I am...

 

Well, @y-lee-coyote ?

 

my favorite quote for a while, hysterical. and yes.

but unfortunately i feel like the equivalent of this argument is made here daily.

 

It's a joke. And the part of the 60 minutes that they are threatening to go on strike made me roll my eyes. So go on strike, fine, you won't get paid. And a small minority will actually care.

 

The question, which isn't simple to answer, is whether a strike would also affect the NWSL.

 

The dangers of that sort of entanglement...

That could be very interesting: a labor action by the employees against one "job" of their total employment while taking a paycheck from the same entity for a different job.

 

The WNT players have one contract covering both the WNT and the NWSL. I don't see how one can separate the two "jobs". I would think a strike/lockout would affect both.
But maybe selective strikes, walkouts, job slowdowns possible by players? Assuming no new CBA, if the WNT players would refuse to attend a WNT camp early in 2017, what would USSF do? Cut off players' monthly checks? If the players then show up at their clubs' preseason camps, the owners would not say no to them, but what would USSF do? Lockout the players? If in the middle of the season, if players refused to attend a WNT camp, what would USSF do? If all had weddings of cousins third removed on the weekend during a FIFA window, what would USSF do? Refuse to pay them? lock them out of their clubs? Form a "scab" team and still sell tickets? If all the WNT players suffered leg cramps the same weekend and could not play in their club games, what would USSF do?

 

The interesting thing about a strike/work stoppage is that not just contracted players may be affected.

Here is the current clause for membership in the PA:

Any person who is a player or has been a player, or who has been called into any training session for the USWNT since June 1, 1999, shall be eligible for membership, except any such persons who are employed in any managerial or business capacity by the Federation may remain a member, but may not be an active participant.

Each member of the Association who has been on the roster of the Team for games against the national "A" team of another country 4 times during the preceding 12 months shall be a voting member and entitled to one vote.

http://media.philly.com/storage/philly/tannenwald/20160204_ussf_vs_uswnt_initial_filing.pdf

The most recent rosters brought in a number of players to both camps who now qualify as voting members. A strike might mean some cross a picket line and others won't, but it also means that more players now have a say in the contract.

 

My offense was at their arrogance. They talked about how great and how accomplished they are and I sat there thinking well duh!! Of course you are, we, the taxpayer paid for it.

Their specious comparison of the womens accomplishment to the men's accomplishments compelled me to point out that they are not actually somehow inherently better, but had competitive advantages over the rest of the entire world that the men did not have.

Before some obtuse pedant points out that the men's college athletic programs receive subsidy funding as well, it is widely accepted that men's college soccer is not a preferred (albeit still possible) developmental path for professional footballers.

We will see how they do as the rest of the world catches up on Woso and foriegn born little girls who love the game get their chances to develop and play football for a living. Those chances will come following the Euro models. Oh and those will likely be privately funded developments that are based on merit and economic viabilty not government largesse.

This does not have anything to do with whether they are receiving a fair deal or not, it has to do with the whole "poor little women" dialogue they are proferring instead of anything resembling concrete reasons. Things like actual financials that show a true and clear picture as opposed to a single year snapshot that misrepresents material facts.

tldr; their intellectual dishonesty made me mad.