World Cup win likely boosts women’s equal pay lawsuit

The U.S. Women's National Team's 2-0 win over the Netherlands in the Women's World Cup final might have given the team some extra leverage heading into its next match: A mediation with its employer, the United States Soccer Federation, experts said Monday.

"Often, in terms of a settlement, it's the things outside of the actual lawsuit itself that are important," said John D. Winer of Winer, Burritt & Tillis LLP in Oakland. "The whole country is behind them."

From the chants of "Equal Pay!" in the stands of Stade de Lyon to dramatic wins against host team France and an undefeated Netherlands squad, the women's national team head into mediation on a wave of heightened public sentiment, Winer said.

"The soccer federation simply has to settle because they'll get terrible publicity if they don't," he said.

All 28 members signed on to a class action against the federation in March, alleging the organization pays the women's team less than the U.S. Men's National Team despite being more successful and earning more in revenue than the men. Morgan v. United States Soccer Federation, Inc., 19-CV01717 (C.D. Cal., filed Mar. 8, 2019).

The team and the federation agreed to mediation in June before the start of the World Cup, according to news reports. The mediation is set to begin following the tournament.

The suit alleges the federation violated both the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "by paying them less than members of the [men's team] for substantially equal work and by denying them at least equal playing, training, and travel conditions."

The suit comes at a time when the women's team "has achieved unmatched success in international soccer," including four Women's World Cup championships going back to the tournament's 1991 inception. The women's team also alleges revenue from the women's 2015 World Cup victory turned a projected federation loss of more than $420,000 to more than $17 million in profit during the 2016 fiscal year.

Sunday's World Cup victory, coupled with the men's team's loss in the CONCACAF Gold Cup finals the same day, only emphasizes that claim, Winer said.

"It certainly increases the argument that the women's team should be paid as much as, if not more than, the men's team," he said. "This is one of the few times in a case like this where you can actually demonstrate that the women are making more money than the men [for the federation]."

According to the suit, the women's team claims they make as little as 38% of what the men do for winning non-tournament games called "friendlies." If each team won 20 friendlies a year, women players would earn a maximum $4,950 per game while the men earned $13,166 per game.

"The disparity between what they make versus what the men make is so bad that it just cries out for correction," said Christine Helwick, of counsel in Hirschfeld Kraemer's San Francisco office.

The federation said the pay structure is "based on differences in aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex," according to court documents.

"Voodoo math," said Helwick. "I just can't, in my wildest imagination, think of whatever arguments could be made that would suggest [the women] should be paid less."