American football players struggle to get paid like males

American women’s soccer has been crowned world champions four times. On the other hand, the men’s team has participated in the world championships twelve times and its best result is still the third place it got in 1930. However, the men are paid more.

To get a fair wage, the players of the women’s national team had to go to court, to wage a series of legal battles. In 2019, led by captain Alex Morgan, they sued the US Soccer Federation for gender discrimination – because despite sharing the same responsibilities with their male teammates and also being able to perform better on the field – they had “consistently received less than their salary.” Peers.” And so they sought damages, for $64 million plus 3 million in interest, under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And they won. Days ago, the US Soccer Federation announced that the contracts of the men’s and women’s national soccer teams in terms of wages have been settled. The goal, at the moment, is to harmonize the salary levels of the largest citizens in a single collective agreement structure.

“This is definitely a huge step forward,” said Leah Carter, a sports psychologist at Temple University. The decision to settle the contracts is an admission that “the US women’s soccer team has not been treated well in the past”. USAF has also asked the associations of other countries to work together to ensure that FIFA will also equate to the cash prizes allocated to teams participating in the World Cup – which is in fact greater for males at the moment.

In fact, in 2015, the FIFA Women’s World Cup included a prize of $15 million. Four years later, in 2019, they are 30. After the victory of the US women’s national team in 2019, FIFA President Gianni Infantino pledged to double the prize again in light of the 2023 World Cup. Numbers are far from those for males, whose premiums are around $400 million .

And what about Italy? In our country, the situation is still far behind the United States. Italian women’s football is still considered an amateur sport, although in recent years significant strides have been made in this regard, and starting from the 2022/23 season, women’s football will officially become professional – the first women’s sport to be considered in Italy.