The Conversation (0)
Conrad Duncan
Jun 12, 2019
The US women’s football team has scored more goals in just one game than the men’s football team scored in every World Cup since 2006 combined.
The 13-0 win against Thailand was the biggest win in World Cup history (while the men's team has scored just 12 goals in the last four tournaments) and has intensified a debate around equal pay in football.
In March, the US women’s team sued the US Soccer federation over “institutionalised gender discrimination” over equal pay.
The team argued that they play and win more games than the men’s national team, yet receive lesser pay, resources and training facilities.
According to the team's legal complaint - when the women’s team won the 2015 World Cup, they made $1,725,000, while the men’s team made $5,375,000 for the 2014 World Cup, despite losing in the first knockout round.
The US men’s football team has not reached a quarter-final since 2002 and didn’t even qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia.
Over the same period, the women’s team has always reached the World Cup semi-final at least, including taking the top prize in 2015.
However, critics argue that the US men’s team (and men’s football in general) generates more revenue than the women’s team.
The US men’s team might be mediocre but they take their share from a huge pot of money generated by the men’s World Cup.
The New York Times estimated that Fifa would make $6.1bn from the 2018 World Cup, while the women’s World Cup in 2015 generated around $73m.
After such a brutal defeat, some wondered if the US team should have toned down their celebrations towards the end...
While others argued that you shouldn’t take anything for granted in a World Cup and the team were right to score as many goals as possible.
US Soccer has maintained that the men’s and women’s teams are doing different work and get paid accordingly, but commanding wins like the one against Thailand make it harder to justify the huge pay gap.
HT: Vox
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