After multiple years of fighting a historic collective bargaining agreement was reached to award equal pay to the U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Teams.
This comes after almost three decades of dominance by the U.S. Women’s National Team, which has won four World Cups since the team was created in 1991. The U.S. Men’s National Team made it to the Round of 16 in 2010 and 2014 but failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
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The fight for equal pay between the team teams began in earnest in 2016 when Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Becky Sauerbrunn, Hope Solo, and Carli Lloyd filed an EEOC complaint followed by a lawsuit that was filed by 28 members of the team.
The lawsuit cited “years of ongoing institutionalized gender discrimination against the players in their compensation and working conditions.”
Under the terms of the new agreement, World Cup Prize money will be pooled between both the Men’s and Women’s National Teams and split equally amongst all the players. The United States is the first country in the soccer federation to have such an agreement.
When U.S. Women’s National Team defender Becky Sauerbrunn appeared on the TODAY Show, she exclaimed, “I am feeling extreme pride. To be able to say finally, equal pay for equal work feels very, very good.”
Heading into the 2022 World Cup, the U.S. Men’s National Team has +10000 odds to win the trophy, rankings as the 15th-highest odds in the field. The USMNT also has +700 odds to win Group B, which also features England, Iran, and the winner of the European Playoff between Wales, Ukraine, and Scotland.
The U.S. Women’s National Team is the current betting favorite for the 2023 World Cup with +235 odds to win the trophy and -250 odds to make the semi-finals and place in the top four.