When the U.S. Women’s National Team won its fourth World Cup title on a Sunday in France two years ago, the financial prize for U.S. Soccer was $4 million. This seems like a lot of money because it is a lot of money, but in the world of FIFA, it is half what teams at the men’s World Cup get for walking in the door.
Panama lost all three of its games by a composite nine goals and finished 32nd out of 32 teams at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Its federation was paid $8 million for this performance.
We told you a year ago this was the biggest problem in the USWNT’s fight for “equal pay”: The absurd disparity in prize money between the men’s World Cup and the women’s, and at last those in charge of U.S. Soccer are acknowledging the issue.
Whether they can do anything about it is another matter altogether.
“We have been working in this area,” USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone told Sporting News during a press call Tuesday. “It’s not just pushing FIFA. Everyone needs to realize we’re one of 211 federations that make up FIFA, and it’s a top-down/bottom-up approach that we need to take.
