Equal Play. Equal Pay.
By: Ashley Reyes
Tags: Awareness, Equal Pay, 2015 World Cup Champs, Gender Equality, Soccer

The FIFA association has recently been accused by the U.S. National Women’s team for unequal pay, sponsorship and treatment.

While soccer is played by both men and women, the FIFA organization has recently demonstrated that sexism exists in the sport. Sexism enforces the idea that women should be treated differently from men. Such is seen with the different pay, sponsorship and treatment that the women’s team receives in comparison to the men’s team. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has triumphed at the Olympics in Rio, brought gold medals home, won numerous championships, was the top team at the 2015 World Cup and won the SheBelieves 2018 Cup. On the other hand, the men’s team did not even qualify to the semi-final round during the 2015 World Cup nor have they won any major games. However, the FIFA organization maintains the idea that the men’s team deserves better pay and treatment than the women’s team.

The issues faced by the U.S. Women’s National Team has recently gained more coverage and recognition. Stéphanie Thomson, a writer for the World Economic Forum interviewed the number one woman soccer player in the world, Alex Morgan. Morgan explained during her interview, “We got a $1.8 million dollar bonus for winning the World Cup, and we had to disburse it among the 23 players. The men, for losing, got $8 million to share among the players, and they also received millions of dollars for every point they won in the World Cup.” Similar to Alex Morgan, many of the women playing to represent the United States feel frustrated by this unfair treatment. Every woman on the team has made sacrifices and dedicated hours of training to prepare for big tournaments like the 2015 World Cup and the 2018 SheBelieves Cup. Even though men and women work as equally hard, when classifying the value of each team’s talent, women are seen as deserving less pay than men. The FIFA association has tried to justify this unequal treatment by emphasizing that the U.S. Women’s National Team does not attract enough fans/viewers. Therefore it makes it difficult for the women to earn the same pay as the men. However, it cannot be denied that the women’s team has been extremely successful and has represented its nation with pride and hard work.

The U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team celebrating with all their fans after winning the 2015 World Cup, but this still was not an enough amount for Fox Sports.

It is also important to recognize that the women’s national soccer team has attracted the most number of fans to ever watch a women’s sporting event. This fact further weakens the FIFA Association’s claim that female players are less deserving of equal pay because of the revenue they collect. Jere Longman, the author of The Girls of Summer makes it clear that for the final in the Rose Bowl, “90,185 fans crammed into a football stadium for women’s soccer, the largest crowd ever to watch a women’s sporting event in the United States.” The number of sponsors for the women’s soccer national team is extremely low compared to the ones for the men. The Rose Bowl attracted many fans to attend the game and the World Cup did as well. However, not enough television sponsors captured the moment which minimized the number of views that the women received. The men’s soccer team did not make it far during the 2015 World Cup nor in any recent tournaments, but Fox Sports was present to interview the players before and after the game. The interviews were published on social media. Yet if you were to search for interviews of the 2015 Women’s World Cup Champions, hardly any appear. When the women played the 2015 World Cup final and later celebrated their victory, Fox Sports was nowhere to be found. Fox Sports claimed that the women’s games would not attract enough viewers so it was not worth attending. The World Economic Forum included in their study that the Fox Sports has previously stated that soccer is an intense sport and women do not play it with enough intensity. Fox Sports has also mentioned that women should be paid to work as models for example, but not for playing soccer. For many organizations, women are not capable of performing in a soccer field the same as men because it is not their gender role to do so. Therefore many organizations like Fox Sports refuse to see the value in an equal pay for the Women’s and Men’s National Soccer Teams.

Another form of unfair treatment towards the U.S. National Women’s Team is the schedule they are given. The women are scheduled to play on fields with nothing but dirt and bumps. When preparing for the World Cup and other important national tournaments, the women’s team is assigned to play on the turf fields which causes burns and cuts all over their legs. On the other hand, the men’s team is assigned to play on natural grass all the time. A study, “Risk of Injury on Artificial Turf and Natural Grass in Young Female Football Players” by Kathrin Steffen, Thor Einar Andersen, and Roald Bahr proved that turf field is the worse field to play in. In their experiment results, they proved that “of the 2020 players, 421 (20.8%) sustained at least one injury, with 68 (3.4%), 17 (0.8%) and 1 (0.05%) incurring two, three and four injuries, respectively, leading to a total of 526 injuries.” Turf fields have caused numerous injuries and continue to increase the probability of injuries. The FIFA World Cup is in support of the decision to let women play on turf field and for the men to play on natural grass.

Sydney Leroux tweeted a picture of her bruised legs after playing a soccer match on turf.

This unfair treatment arose to a further argument when one of the starting left forwards for the U.S. National Women’s Team, Sydney Leroux, spoke during an interview with VICE Sports. Then later uploaded images on her social media about her horrible experiences with turf fields. She mentioned during her interview with VICE Sports, “It’s not worth not being able to shower for three days [because water stings turf burns].” Leroux mentioned with frustration how the numerous cuts and turf burns she has received from playing on turf fields have caused her days of pain. Leroux boldly declared that there would be no way that the FIFA World Cup would ever allow the men’s team to play on a turf field. She knows that such decision is classified as gender inequality, which proves further sexism among the national teams.

Through all these unfair treatments, the term representational intersectionality is brought to our attention. In an article titled “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence against Women of Color,” Kimberle Crenshaw identifies representational intersectionality as the cultural construction of the identity, including the production and the contemporary critiques of the identity. It emphasizes what and how the media portrays situations regarding the unequal pay between men and women for example. The media congratulates the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in public conferences, on social media and during interviews. However, when it comes to physically handing them the money they well earned, they begin to make excuses. Completely disregarding that the women’s team has been a lot more successful than the men’s team, a barrier is built in the equal pay between the women’s and men’s team. Through this situation that the U.S. Women’s National Team is facing, we see that violence does not only target minority groups. It targets all women, even if they pertain to the white race. Everyone on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s holds a legal residency. However they also have a mixture of women: African American and Canadians. The reality is that race is not the only characteristic that affects how these women are treated and valued. They all hold a legal residency in the United States, but because they are women, they are seen as less and are paid less.

Moreover, Crenshaw stated in her article, “Over the past two decades, recognizing that the political demands of many speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices, women have organized against the almost routine violence that shapes their lives.” The U.S. National Women’s team has demonstrated through their boldness and unity that a group of discriminated female victims have the power to use their voice to stand up against the inequalities they are facing. These brave women have brought awareness to the community and have promoted the ability to fight for gender equality. The members of the women’s team know they deserve equal pay and are fighting to end the inequality between the men and women’s professional soccer careers. Lindsay Gibbs, a sports director at Thinkprogress mentioned, “It was a clear sign that this plea for equality is about much more than just dollars and cents. It’s about respect.” Both national teams (men and women) are known for getting recruited into the national teams in the age range of 18–21 years old. Throughout those years, both men and women worked hard to earn a starting position on the field. Years prior to getting recruited, the women worked just as hard as the men to stand out to the U.S. national soccer coaches and be recruited. The women’s soccer team knows they have earned the respect of millions of fans especially after winning the 2015 World Cup. Now they are seeking to earn the respect of the FIFA World Cup who continues to discriminate them.

All in all, sexism among the U.S. National Soccer Teams has been around since 1999. However, it has recently gained more recognition since the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team won the 2015 World Cup. Carli Lloyd, the captain of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team stated the following during an interview, “This isn’t about a money grab. It’s about doing the right thing, the fair thing. It’s about treating people the way they deserve to be treated, no matter their gender.” The women’s team has participated in online campaigns in an effort to continue raising awareness about the issues they face. After all they have done to represent their country, they simply ask to be treated with the respect that they deserve.