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The Best Women’s Soccer Team in the World Fights for Equal Pay
The best women's soccer team in the world isn't among the best 1000 teams overall. If the criteria is the level of soccer played then nothing could be clearer than the fact that they don't rate equal pay.
Women are allowed on the men’s team. If they want to be paid more they should try out for the men’s team.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric
On the other hand, if equal pay for equal work is what they're after that's pretty simple. Go play for the men's team. The problem is they wouldn't make it. So really the emphasis should be on increasing the popularity of women's sports (which is really where most of the effort is).
I tried to confirm this, as I thought I had read somewhere that women were banned from playing in men's international competitions. Indeed, FIFA's official "Gender Verification" Regulations (last updated 2011) include such a rule (points of added emphasis in bold blue):
Quote:
Originally Posted by FIFA
PREAMBLE
FIFA competitions are defined for specific groups determined, inter alia, by age and sex in order to ensure a level playing field for all players. With respect to the integrity of football, it is of utmost importance and must be guaranteed that players fulfill the respective criteria for participation. FIFA competitions are separated for men and women. This separation must be safeguarded and protected. Androgenic hormones have performance-enhancing effects, particularly on strength, power, and speed, which may provide an advantage in football and could influence the outcome of the game. Thus, gender verification is of particular importance.
Based on art. 2 par. e and art. 48 of the FIFA Statutes, the Executive Committee has issued the following regulations.
[....]
4 Gender eligibility
1. For FIFA men's competitions, only men are eligible to play. For FIFA women's competitions, only women are eligible to play.
2. Each participating member association shall, amongst other things, ensure that all players are eligible for selection in accordance with the FIFA Statutes and relevant FIFA Regulations. As a consequence, each participating member association shall, prior to the nomination of its national team, ensure the correct gender of all the players to be considered for such nomination by actively investigation any perceived deviation in secondary sex characteristics and keeping complete documentation of the findings.
Can anyone provide a source showing that these regulations have been rescinded (so that women are no longer banned from men's FIFA competitions)?
I can't figure out how women's soccer seems much more popular in the US, certainly through the youth level. But a professional league has never thrived.
But here's a novel idea - have the USWNT and USMNT play all around the country next year. Against each other. And which ever one wins, they get 2/3 of the money. The loser gets 1/3.
Well, there is an effort to make womens pro soccer seem much more popular within the US today, compared to years past.
I dont think its anymore or any less popular today, its just that we hear so much more about it today, that is why it seems that way.
I tried to confirm this, as I thought I had read somewhere that women were banned from playing in men's international competitions. Indeed, FIFA's official "Gender Verification" Regulations (last updated 2011) include such a rule (points of added emphasis in bold blue):
Can anyone provide a source showing that these regulations have been rescinded (so that women are no longer banned from men's FIFA competitions)?
#1 Actually read my post. You are citing partial revenue numbers (only from tournament appearances) to frame an argument that you can't make with total revenue.
#2 Women keep over 40% of FIFA Women's world cup revenue. Men keep less than 7% of Men's world cup revenue.
The pay gap favors women athletes.
FIFA funds women's soccer with hundreds of millions a year - and they can do this because of the men's world cup...
People are claiming that FIFA is biased against paying the women players...this is nonsense. You aren't making this argument, but it is a BS argument that is related to yours. The men make more because of TV $ and when they make the men's tournament they will make more money showing up and losing all 3 games than the women will make if they win it. Why? Because the men's tournament will draw in $6.1 Billion for FIFA and the women's will be lucky to hit $0.1 Billion.
That is just math.
Once again this is about the USWNT, not FIFA. the lawsuit has nothing to do with FIFA.
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The lawsuit asserts, for example, that from 2013 to 2016, if a male and a female national team player each played 20 exhibition games in a year, members of the men’s squad would have earned an average of $263,320, while members of the women’s squad would have earned a maximum of $99,000
Yes, and the revenue historically has been much higher for the men. Primarily we are talking World Cup years as particularly in the US it's the only time soccer exists. In past years based on revenue the women were overpaid substantially. It isn't really event revenue that matters. TV is what matters really. The numbers a better, pretty big, but still only about what tunes in for the men's games when the US and Mexico aren't playing and around 20 percent of the views that US men's team got last time they made it to the Cup even though they aren't any good.
Which is still the problem. About as many people tune in to watch a random men's game as a US women's game despite how dominant they are, and that's here in the US. That's the problem. There are a lot of teams, each of them generating the same viewership numbers as the US women's team does when it plays. And those numbers are shockingly high. In the rest of the world, which is where the revenue is made, they are a drop in the bucket. Less views means less advertising dollars means less licensing revenue FIFA can generate which means less revenue sharing which means lower salaries.
On the other hand, if equal pay for equal work is what they're after that's pretty simple. Go play for the men's team. The problem is they wouldn't make it. So really the emphasis should be on increasing the popularity of women's sports (which is really where most of the effort is).
The revenue brought in by the women's national team has been very popular going back to 1999 yet are paid a fraction. This has been an ongoing battel for some time, women's team popularity and success and coupled with the men's teams failures have made the disparity rather glaring.
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It cites numbers from the 2016 fiscal year that indicate that the federation had expected a combined net loss for the national teams of $429,929, but that largely because of the women’s team’s successes it revised its projections to a $17.7 million profit.
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