If there’s one thing that’s been apparent for the U.S. women’s national team on the biggest stages over the last three decades, it’s that it has a habit of winning. Some games during tournaments don’t go its way. Some tournaments as a whole don’t go its way. It’s far from faultless. But it persists and tends to bounce back quite emphatically if and when missteps occur.
So for the USWNT, Tuesday was a day that was nearly six years and two World Cup cycles in the making and has all the hallmarks of another resounding triumph in the face of adversity.
The long-running lawsuit waged against U.S. Soccer alleging gender discrimination has been settled, pending some rather important contingencies. While it is surely a day for celebration, things are not quite at the finish line. The agreement over the most contentious issue has been sorted—U.S. players will receive $22 million in back pay, while another $2 million will be dedicated to post-player ventures and charitable use—it won’t go into effect until a new USWNT CBA has been ratified. And that isn’t likely to be fully possible without buy-in from the U.S. men's players, who must also meet the federation’s stated wish for "an equal rate of pay going forward for the women’s and men’s national teams in all friendlies and tournaments, including the World Cup."
But given the animosity and tone of relationship between the federation and the U.S. women, it’s hard not to feel a sense of real weight being lifted with the latest developments. Nearly six years from the initial Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filing that alleged discrimination and nearly three years removed from the start of the class action equal pay lawsuit, there is a pathway to peace.
“This is just such a monumental step forward in feeling valued, feeling respected, and just mending our relationship with U.S. Soccer that’s really been full of tension and very far apart from each other for many years, for about six years now. With the leadership of Cindy, it’s great to just take that step forward. I not only see this as a win for our team or women’s sports but women in general. It’s an incredible day," veteran U.S. forward Alex Morgan, symbolically and purposefully seated alongside U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone, said on Good Morning America on Tuesday.
And that really is the crux of the issue. The U.S. women, for all they have accomplished, have been operating under a cloud of anger and disrespect. They’ve walked out onto a field with their shirts inside out to hide the U.S. Soccer crest. They’ve been disparaged in misogynistic and misguided legal filings. They’ve suffered defeat in the court of law, even if the court of public opinion always appeared to be heavily slanted in their favor. It’s true that they have simultaneously been one of the most supported women’s national teams in the world while also not receiving the full amount of back pay they were seeking ($66 million), but it does on the surface look like a genuine compromise between two parties that ultimately wanted the same thing: avoiding the courtroom and securing progress and a brighter present and future.
“It’s a really amazing day. I think we’re going to look back on this day and say this is the moment that, you know, U.S. Soccer changed for the better,” Megan Rapinoe said on GMA. “We can’t go back and undo the injustices that we faced, but the only justice coming out of this is that we know something like this is never going to happen again and we can move forward making soccer the best sport we possibly can in this country and setting up the next generation so much better than we ever had it. It’s a great day.”
The development also has to make a mark on the federation’s presidential election, which looms just a couple of weeks away. The optics of Carlos Cordeiro’s running again after he had resigned in disgrace a couple of years ago amid the horrid legal filing that occurred on his watch were bad enough. But a big part of his campaign promise was finding an equal pay solution. Parlow Cone and CEO Will Wilson have done just that. The voting constituency has split priorities, and not all are so heavily invested in the senior national teams (state organizations and other grassroots members, for instance, may feel like that $24 million could be best allocated elsewhere), but it's hard to see how this doesn’t play well for Parlow Cone in her quest for reelection.
But U.S. Soccer politics are not what this is ultimately about, at least not most directly. As Sophia Smith, a 21-year-old forward who represents the future of the USWNT, tweeted following Tuesday’s announcement, “No amount of words can say thank you enough to all of the USWNT players who have been fighting for this for so many years. Not only for themselves but for the next generation and every single one after that. Thank you for never giving up and teaching us to never settle for less.”
It’s another win for this decorated group of U.S. women, one that will have a far-reaching impact for both them and those who eventually supplant them in the continued quest for the on-field victories that have become a core part of their identity.
