USWNT MF Carli Lloyd, who last month joined four teammates in "filing a wage-discrimination complaint against U.S. Soccer," in an essay for the N.Y. TIMES writes her decision to join the players' action "had nothing to do with how much" she loves playing for the national team. Rather it had "everything to do with what's right and what's fair, and with upholding a fundamental American concept: equal pay for equal play." The USWNT is "sick of being treated like second-class citizens." Lloyd: "We are done with it." Even though U.S. Soccer's financials "confirm that we are the driving force that generates a majority of the revenue for the federation, when we as a team presented our proposal for increased compensation in our new collective bargaining agreement, U.S. Soccer told us, on more than one occasion, that our proposal was not rational." The USWNT for years has "gotten nowhere negotiating" with U.S. Soccer, and that fact led to the players' complaint filed with the EEOC. Lloyd notes if she "were a male soccer player who won a World Cup" for the U.S., her bonus "would be $390,000." But because she is a female soccer player, the bonus she got for the USWNT's FIFA World Cup victory last summer "was $75,000." Lloyd understands that the men's World Cup "generates vastly more money globally than the women's event, but the simple truth is that U.S. Soccer projects that our team will generate a profit" of $5.2M in '17 while the men "are forecast to lose" almost $1M. Lloyd: "Our beef is not with the men's national team; we love those guys." The USWNT's problem is with U.S. Soccer and its history of treating female players as if they "should be happy that we are professional players and not working in the kitchen or scrubbing the locker room" (N.Y. TIMES, 4/11).
