Category: women’s soccer

us soccer, women's soccer

Women’s soccer: How about equal spending in general, not just equal pay?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Harvard Business Review had a piece on lessons to learn from the U.S. women’s soccer team’s “equal pay” push, which may be premature given that the lawsuit hasn’t proceeded yet (and, based solely on what’s going to end up presented in court, may not go well for the women).

Here’s how I responded:

I’ve covered women’s soccer for two decades, and I’ve covered the pay issue for several years. This piece makes a few assumptions:

  1. That the USSF data is incorrect and the data associated with the women’s team, such as the dubious “38 percent” claim, is correct.
  2. That the differences between the MLS and NWSL broadcast deals are somehow related to U.S. Soccer even though the federation has heavily subsidized the NWSL. (Yes, you could argue that the overlapping entities of U.S. Soccer, MLS and Soccer United Marketing have amounted to a subsidy for MLS, but that case isn’t made here and hasn’t been fully made elsewhere to my knowledge.)
  3. That the USSF is to blame for a lack of outside investment in the NWSL even though all the pundits and media personalities who jump on the “equal pay” bandwagon have failed to cover or invest in the last two women’s leagues.
  4. That “equal pay” is easily defined. The U.S. women play under a vastly different set of circumstances — no high-stakes trips to hostile venues in Central America and the Caribbean, scant competition for places — in addition to a salary structure that the women declined to go without when they agreed to the last collective bargaining agreement in 2017.
  5. That the women’s aggressive and often misleading stance in 2016, led by Hope Solo’s recommended lawyer Rich Nichols, didn’t hurt their bargaining position when they signed their deal in 2017.
  6. That the Manchin bill would help the U.S. women even though the men’s World Cup will be a money-maker for U.S. Soccer that can only help the women’s program.
  7. That the national teams, not youth programs where the USA is falling behind European countries, are the priority for additional spending.

Simply put, it’s not that simple.

In my work, I try to present the facts as they are, but I have a bias — I want to see women’s soccer succeed at ALL levels, especially because soccer success trickles up from the youth ranks, not down from the national team.

It’s easy to make a case that U.S. Soccer — which, it must be said, started investing in women’s soccer before nearly any other country in the world did — should spend more on development for women (and actually a bit more for the men as well). It’s not just “equal pay” for a handful of players who actually earn more than the men in many scenarios, including the real-world scenarios of the last several years. It’s equal spending.

2
us soccer, women's soccer

Equal-pay play: No friendly gap, narrowed Cup bonuses

Posted on by Beau Dure

Now that the national team pay calculator is done (more or less), we can run some scenarios.

Here’s one:

Assumed results:

  • Women win World Cup with 9 points in group stage, take Olympic bronze with 7 points in group stage.
  • Men reach World Cup quarterfinals (7 points in group) one year and take 3 points in group stage in another. 

Friendlies: Bonuses for women are now the men’s bonuses minus their game bonuses, so the pay per game should be equal.

Women’s World Cup qualifiers: Now paid at the same rate as Tier 2 friendlies.
 
Women’s World Cup qualifying bonus: Now roughly equal to what a mid-tier men’s player would make for World Cup qualifying bonus. (The men’s pool bonus is split, not equally, among a much larger group.)

Women’s World Cup bonuses:

  • $10.39 million possible team pay, up from $2.53 million
  • Bonus for the tour formerly known as the Victory Tour bonus is unchanged at $1.4 million after finishing first
  • $11.79 million total (prize + tour), up from $3.93 million
  • Reminder: FIFA prize money was $4 million for first place in 2019 but will rise, maybe not quite double. USSF will lose maybe $4-6 million.

Men’s World Cup bonuses:

  • $26.471 million possible team pay, down from to $20 million, with most of the cuts in later rounds
  • Reminder: FIFA prize money was $38 million for first place in 2018.

Women’s Olympic bonuses:

  • $3.8 million possible team pay, up from $1.8 million
  • Bonus for the tour formerly known as the Victory Tour bonus is unchanged at $1.2 million after finishing first  
  • Reminder: USOC prize money is $35,000 for each gold medalist

New for men: Likeness rights, which are convoluted in the current men’s CBA, are pooled into a $350,000 sum as in the women’s CBA.

Unchanged: Gold Cup, Copa America, SheBelieves Cup and Tournament of Nations bonuses. 

RESULTS

  • Total team compensation over 6 years: women $52,562,676, men $43,925,132
  • Maximum possible per player over 6 years: women $2,454,331, men $1,858,198

Full results

And more detail …

0
us soccer, women's soccer

Why do I question women’s soccer narratives?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’m aggravated when people denigrate soccer because it’s my favorite sport — and because such sentiments are often rooted in a form of xenophobia in which generations have been expected to be culturally assimilated through our devotion to American sports like football, basketball and baseball.

I’m aggravated when people denigrate women’s sports because such sentiments are rooted in sexism. As with soccer, no one’s forcing you to play or watch, why put down anyone who makes a different choice?

I’m aggravated when people denigrate women’s soccer for any combination of the reasons above.

In case you don’t know my history covering women’s soccer, here are a few highlights:

So why did I write a piece for The Guardian talking about the U.S. women’s soccer team’s arrogance and their fans’ misguided hero worship?

Why have I written two pieces for Soccer America questioning the prevailing wisdom on equal pay in women’s soccer — not to question whether the women deserve to be paid more but to give people the information they need to make it happen?

Why have I spent a week creating a spreadsheet exploring how much the men’s and women’s national teams have made and would make, given different variables?

Because I’m more aggravated by misinformation.

It could be a bit of OCD, which I think most traditional journalists have. People with OCD are agitated when other people aren’t following the rules. And yes, I’m agitated with the scapegoating of the U.S. men’s team, as if it’s somehow Christian Pulisic’s fault that FIFA’s World Cup bonuses are out of whack.

But mostly, it’s because I think facts matter, and I think people make bad decisions when they aren’t telling the truth or putting it in perspective. (Yes, the current period of American history is hell for me.)

So a few things are difficult to accept …

Distorted equal pay arguments

It’s one thing to say women’s soccer players should be paid better. You can certainly use my spreadsheet above and highlight inequities.

The distortion is the notion that “the women who win the Cup should be paid more than the men who didn’t qualify.” It’s a distortion because they are paid more.

That’s difficult for some people to accept because the narrative is so powerful. We hear “38 cents to the dollar,” and we don’t understand that such comparisons are only one of the myriad scenarios you could create on my spreadsheet.

If the men and women each won the World Cup (I have a book coming out in November saying one of those will never happen), the men would be paid many times more. You can certainly argue that it’s not fair. Then you can argue about whether U.S. Soccer can fix it while FIFA drags its feet on prize money. You can argue about whether the bulk of prize money, men or women, should be going to the next generation of athletes as well as the current one. (Olympic prize money — in fact, the revenue U.S. Soccer gets from the Olympics — is basically nothing, and yet the U.S. women get bonuses.) You can come up with many different ways to rectify the situation, which is why I built the calculator, but there’s no denying the situation exists.

But when the men don’t qualify, they don’t get paid. In my calculations, I see few, if any, men’s players making six figures in 2018. They might make it in 2019, helped by Gold Cup bonuses that are surprisingly low given the attendance for those games.

In other words — the women’s base salary of $100,000, before any bonuses or game fees are paid, is more than what men will make.

So griping that the women should be paid more than men in years such as this is a bit like saying summer in Virginia should be hot. It is.

A “double standard” on behavior

It’s not the first time this has happened in women’s soccer. A women’s soccer player (say, Hope Solo) is criticized for her behavior. We immediately hear men wouldn’t be criticized for such things. That’s simply not true.

These conversations are, of course, far too polarized. On one side, you have people who’ll defend nearly anything the women do.

I’m very suspicious of any such devotion to anyone. Megan Rapinoe. Kanye West. Donald Trump. The Instagram influencers who got people to go to the Fyre Festival.

The good part of all this is that it’s at least an effective counterweight to the other side — the sexist dirtbags who don’t want the women to be paid well. They don’t even want us journalists to be writing about them at all. I actually had a female editor once tell me to quit writing so much about women’s soccer.

Make no mistake — I’d rather see a bunch of people making a statement for women’s rights and gay rights than a team of dumbasses pledging fealty to Brazil’s president or the worst elements of ICE and the Border Patrol. And women have to put up with a lot of things men don’t, from glass ceilings to horrific abuse on Twitter.

But facts and proper context won’t undo any progress fighting against these forces. It’ll just put the movement on a firmer foundation.

So what I’m doing isn’t a “build up and tear down” thing. It’s a “build up” that recognizes complexity and nuance while trying to avoid dead ends.

Because we’ve been through this before. Everyone remembers 1999. Maybe 1996. Less likely, 2004. Few remember the doldrums of the mid-2000s, when we had no professional league and little interest in women’s soccer.

The people who pop up for the majors (World Cup, Olympics) will yell about equal pay without addressing the specifics. They’ll decry the “double standards” of those who raise even the slightest questions about celebrations — an interesting accusation to lob at Hope Solo, and one that fed the fire that made Kaylyn Kyle respond to death threats — before moving on the next story. Maybe Tom Brady will injure Eric Trump while playfully tossing a dinner roll at a White House dinner. Maybe Grayson Allen will pick up a technical foul. Maybe Bryce Harper will take a fastball in the ribs.

You won’t see these people at NWSL games, writing about whether the Portland Thorns/Timbers relationship is a new model for dual-gender professional sports organizations. You won’t see them analyzing the games to see that Julie Ertz had a much bigger impact on the USA’s wins than Megan Rapinoe. (Golden Ball voters really dropped the ball on that one.)

Maybe at some point, we’ll actually cover women’s soccer for what it is. It’s a sport. It has some athletes who’ve made a fortune and some who have second jobs, and in the NWSL, you may see the latter outperforming the former.

Alex Morgan and Marta are on the same team. They’re in eighth place. Out of nine. They missed the playoffs last year, too.

Women’s soccer is interesting. It’s not just a platform for skewed cries of sexism.

Check it out.

2
us soccer, women's soccer

A quick guide to the U.S. women’s soccer pay dispute

Posted on by Beau Dure

This World Cup is going to be quite competitive, today’s 13-0 rout notwithstanding. The bad news is that the USA’s chances of winning are less than 50-50, but the good news is that the reason is the growth of the game worldwide. No one who cares about women’s soccer would want the game in England, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere to make no progress.

And it raises a question that pops up on occasion: Why aren’t the U.S. women aren’t paid as much as the U.S. men?

You may be surprised here. Unless U.S. Soccer is outright lying on its 990 form for the fiscal year ending March 2018, the women are being paid more than the men.

Look at pages 7-9, the breakdown of what USSF pays its highest-paid employees. You’ll see that USSF spends ridiculous sums of money on its current and past men’s national team coaches, which we can refer to as The Klinsmann Boondoggle. Even aside from that, it’s hard to understand why the men’s Under-20 coach is paid more than women’s coach Jill Ellis.

The only players, from any team, on this list are …

  • Christen Press, $257,920
  • Becky Sauerbrunn, $256,720
  • Kell(e)y O’Hara, $256,695
  • Samantha Mewis, $247,497

It occurred to me that USSF could have listed the men as independent contractors. But the 990 lists any independent contractor making more than $100,000, and no U.S. men appear there. Also, for the fiscal year ending March 2010, Jozy Altidore and Brad Guzan are listed in the same “highest-compensated employees” that lists Press and company on the most recent 990. (Altidore and Guzan made a little more than $150K, if you’re curious.)

How is this possible? A couple of things:

  1. The men’s team rotates players often. In 2018, even though the men only played 11 games (shame about that World Cup), they used more than 50 different players. No one played 10 games. In 2017, when the men played 19 games, a few players reached double digits, led by Jorge Villafaña, of all people, with 15. (This is worth remembering when we see the “a man playing 20 games” argument — unless I’ve missed someone in the media guide, no man has played 20 national-team games in a year since Landon Donovan in 2002, the year the USA reached the World Cup quarterfinals.) The women might use 30 players in a year, with 8-12 of them getting only a couple of short appearances.
  2. The women (20-25 or so, at least) are on salary. The men are not.
  3. The men haven’t exactly collected that big World Cup bonus. In FY ending March 2018, they actually won a major tournament (the Gold Cup), and their bonuses still didn’t propel anyone into the Sauerbrunn/O’Hara $250K range.

All of this makes things complicated.

But it doesn’t necessarily make things right.

To my knowledge, no one has quantified what “equal pay” would look like. I tried …

https://twitter.com/duresport/status/1136247465496256513

It’s a long thread. The highlights are a women’s salary that equals what a man would make if he played 20 games, evening out “base pay” a bit, and comparable competitions get comparable bonuses. Oh, and I’d slash the men’s bonuses if they ever make a big World Cup run, instead investing that money in youth soccer. Please don’t tell them I said that. And I wonder if I’m just replicating the scenario in the Rush song The Trees, in which the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe and saw.

Even then, you’re faced with a question. When you say “equal pay,” does that mean the women get the same amount of money, divided 30 ways, that the men get divided 50 ways? Or does it mean Alex Morgan should be paid the same as Christian Pulisic?

So that’s the present. But it’s also worth knowing the past, and for that, you should really read Caitlin Murray’s book, which is excerpted in The Guardian.

And that all points to the weird duality of U.S. Soccer and the U.S. women:

  1. The USSF has done quite a lot to push women’s soccer forward.
  2. The USSF has, at times, treated the women’s players with negligence or even malice.

All of which makes it very difficult to assess the fairness of any CBAs, especially those we haven’t seen.

1
women's soccer

Women’s World Cup predictions (collated)

Posted on by Beau Dure

If you made predictions, feel free to share them. I’ll try to compile as best I can.

GROUP STAGE

Key: Third-place teams that qualify marked with asterisk.

The predictors …

  • BD: me
  • 538: from their rankings
  • AC: Avi Creditor, Sports Illustrated
  • LL: Laken Litman, Sports Illustrated (you’ll have to click to see the picks from Kellen Becoats, Luis Miguel Echegaray and Grant Wahl

GROUP A

  • BD: France, Norway, South Korea, Nigeria
  • 538: France, Norway, South Korea*, Nigeria
  • AC: France, Norway, Nigeria*, South Korea
  • LL: France, Norway, South Korea*, Nigeria

GROUP B

  • BD: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • 538: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • AC: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa
  • LL: Germany, Spain, China*, South Africa

GROUP C

  • BD: Australia, Italy, Brazil*, Jamaica
  • 538: Australia, Brazil, Italy*, Jamaica
  • AC: Australia, Brazil, unknown
  • LL: Brazil, Australia, Italy*, Jamaica

GROUP D

  • BD: England, Japan, Scotland*, Argentina
  • 538: England, Japan, Scotland, Argentina
  • AC: England, Scotland, Japan, Argentina
  • LL: England, Japan, unknown

GROUP E

  • BD: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • 538: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • AC: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon
  • LL: Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand*, Cameroon

GROUP F

  • BD: USA, Sweden, Chile, Thailand
  • 538: USA, Sweden, Thailand, Chile
  • AC: USA, Sweden, unknown
  • LL: USA, Sweden, unknown

ROUND OF 16

2A vs. 2C (Nice, June 22)

  • BD: Norway over Italy
  • 538: Brazil over Norway
  • AC: Norway over Brazil
  • LL: Australia over Norway

1D vs. 3B/E/F (Valenciennes, June 23)

  • BD: England over New Zealand
  • 538: England over New Zealand
  • AC: England over New Zealand
  • LL: England over New Zealand

1A vs. 3C/D/E (Le Havre, June 23)

  • BD: France over Brazil
  • 538: France over Italy
  • AC: France over Japan
  • LL: France over Italy

1F vs. 2B (Reims, June 24)

  • BD: USA over Spain
  • 538: USA over Spain
  • AC: USA over Spain
  • LL: USA over Spain

1C vs. 3A/B/F (Montpellier, June 25)

  • BD: Australia over China
  • 538: Australia over China
  • AC: Australia over China
  • LL: Brazil over China

1E vs. 2D (Rennes, June 25)

  • BD: Netherlands over Japan
  • 538: Netherlands over Japan
  • AC: Netherlands over Scotland
  • LL: Netherlands over Japan

1B vs. 3A/C/D (Grenoble, June 22)

  • BD: Germany over Scotland
  • 538: Germany over South Korea
  • AC: Germany over Nigeria
  • LL: Germany over South Korea

2F vs. 2E (Paris, June 24)

  • BD: Sweden over Canada
  • 538: Sweden over Canada
  • AC: Canada over Sweden
  • LL: Sweden over Canada

QUARTERFINALS

June 27 (Nice winner vs. Valenciennes winner)

  • BD: England over Norway
  • 538: England over Brazil
  • AC: England over Norway
  • LL: England over Australia

June 28 (Le Havre vs. Reims)

  • BD: USA over France
  • 538: France over USA
  • AC: France over USA
  • LL: USA over France

June 29 (early; Montpellier vs. Rennes)

  • BD: Australia over Netherlands
  • 538: Australia over Netherlands
  • AC: Australia over Netherlands
  • LL: Brazil over Netherlands

June 29 (late; Grenoble vs. Paris)

  • BD: Germany over Sweden
  • 538: Germany over Sweden
  • AC: Germany over Canada
  • LL: Germany over Sweden

SEMIFINALS

July 2 (June 27 winner vs. June 28 winner)

  • BD: USA over England
  • 538: France over England
  • AC: England over France
  • LL: USA over England

July 3 (June 29 winners)

  • BD: Australia over Germany
  • 538: Germany over Australia
  • AC: Germany over Australia
  • LL: Germany over Brazil

MEDALISTS (1st- and 3rd-place games)

  • BD: USA, Australia, England
  • 538: France, Germany, England
  • AC: England, Germany, not picked
  • LL: USA, Germany, not picked
1
women's soccer, world soccer

Game-by-game guide to Women’s World Cup group stage

Posted on by Beau Dure

Three basic icons here:

  • 📺 ️- must-watch
  • ☠️ – must-win
  • 🏏- country also playing in Cricket World Cup on same day

Times Eastern

Friday, June 7

3 p.m., FS1: France vs South Korea. Traditional first-day favorable matchup for the hosts.

Saturday, June 8

📺 9 a.m., FS1: Germany vs China. Does China have anything to offer this time?

Noon, Fox: Spain vs South Africa. This probably won’t be a ratings winner on the main network.

3 p.m., Fox: Norway vs. Nigeria. The longtime African champions might be a surprise team. Or not. Several Nigerian players are based next to Norway in Sweden.

Sunday, June 9

📺 🏏 7 a.m., FS1: Australia vs. Italy. The Aussies, boasting the intergenerational attack of Sam Kerr and Lisa de Vanna, could seriously win this thing. Italy hasn’t been on this stage often but has a couple of interesting attackers from Juventus.

📺 ☠️ 9:30 a.m., FS1: Brazil vs. Jamaica. It’s Marta vs. Bunny Shaw. Samba vs. reggae. And we’ll either see Brazil break its losing streak or an upset they’ll be talking about in the Caribbean for a long time. I’m giving this one the skull-and-crossbones because Brazil will be in serious trouble if they can’t take this one.

📺 ️Noon, Fox: England vs. Scotland. Not quite the history we see on the men’s side, but it’ll be fun to see Kim Little and Rachel Corsie trying to pull off the upset.

Monday, June 10

Noon, FS1: Argentina vs. Japan. Meh. Japan should pass circles around an Argentina team lacking resources. It’ll be nice to see Estefania Banini, though.

3 p.m., FS1: Canada vs. Cameroon. I never thought I’d write the sentence “Can Estelle Johnson stop Christine Sinclair?” outside of an NWSL preview.

Tuesday, June 11

📺 ️9 a.m., FS1: New Zealand vs. Netherlands. The Football Ferns have a squad with plenty of World Cup and Olympic experience, and they’ve brought in Tom Sermanni as coach. They’re facing the shock Euro 2017 champions.

Noon, FS1: Chile vs. Sweden. This matchup within the USA’s group will provide an ideal opportunity to follow along with The Guardian‘s play-by-play.

3 p.m., Fox: USA vs. Thailand. Should be like watching one of those games from the 1990s in which opponents quaked in fear upon seeing Mia Hamm line up across from them.

Wednesday, June 12

☠️ 9 a.m., FS1: Nigeria vs. South Korea. Chelsea’s Ji So-yun will be the orchestrator for South Korea, but Nigeria counters with Barcelona’s Asisat Oshoala, who dominated at U20 level. In a group with France and Norway, this is the best chance for either team to get points. (Remember — the top four third-place teams advance to the Round of 16.)

📺 ️Noon, Fox: Germany vs. Spain. The team of the 2000s vs. the team of the 2020s?

📺 3 p.m., Fox: France vs. ️Norway. Call me Euro-centric if you like, but this is a pretty good doubleheader on Fox.

Thursday, June 13

📺 Noon, Fox: Australia vs. Brazil. Did you ever think Brazil would be the underdog in this matchup? Believe it.

☠️ 3 p.m., Fox: China vs. South Africa. Can’t rule out one of these teams taking a point off Spain, but this is probably a true elimination game.

Friday, June 14

9 a.m., FS1: Japan vs. Scotland. This Japanese team might be a shadow of the 2011 champions, but I’m not seeing a way they’ll drop points in either of these first two games.

📺 🏏 Noon, Fox: Italy vs. Jamaica. Second chance for Bunny Shaw and company to get a result.

🏏3 p.m., Fox: England vs. Argentina. Yeah.

Saturday, June 15

9 a.m., FS1: Netherlands vs. Cameroon. Yeah.

📺 3 p.m., FS2: Canada vs. New Zealand. Another game in which you can’t count out the islanders.

Sunday, June 16

9 a.m., FS1: Sweden vs. Thailand. Maybe they’ll both bunker.

📺 Noon, Fox: USA vs. Chile. This is the de facto final warmup for the Americans.

Monday, June 17 (concurrent games start)

📺 ️Noon, FS1: China vs. Spain. Looks like FS1 plans to carry the “Second-tier Euro team vs. partially unknown Asian team” games.

Noon, Fox: South Africa vs. Germany. Looks like Fox plans to carry the “European power takes easy matchup with upstart African team” games.

3 p.m., FS1: Norway vs. South Korea. Looks like FS1 plans to carry the “Second-tier Euro team vs. partially unknown Asian team” games.

3 p.m., Fox: France vs. Nigeria. Looks like Fox plans to carry the “European power takes easy matchup with upstart African team” games.

Tuesday, June 18

3 p.m., FS1: Italy vs. Brazil. Imagine if this matchup took place between these countries’ men.

3 p.m., FS2: Jamaica vs. Australia. This is asking a bit much of the Caribbean team.

Wednesday, June 19

📺 ️3 p.m., FS1: Japan vs. England. Now we’re talking. Surely a game for first place.

☠️ 3 p.m., FS2: Scotland vs. Argentina. Likely a “loser goes home” game. No guarantee that the winner stays. But it should be one of the more interesting second-tier games.

Thursday, June 20

📺 ️Noon, Fox: Netherlands vs. Canada. There’s a chance one of these teams will have dropped points and will be fighting to stay in the tournament. Also the first of our Europe-CONCACAF doubleheader duel on Fox.

☠️ Noon, FS1: Cameroon vs. New Zealand. Can New Zealand reach another knockout round?

📺 ️📺 ️📺 ️3 p.m., Fox: USA vs. Sweden. Both teams will surely advance, but do we need to tell you why this game is a big one?

☠️ 3 p.m., FS1: Thailand vs. Chile. We’ll feel like we know both of these teams by this point, and yet one or two of them will be out after this.

1
us soccer, women's soccer

U.S. Soccer: The game is not the same

Posted on by Beau Dure

Let’s skip the intro and get right into it …

You may want to refer to the original, because this is a paragraph-by-paragraph response. Miki Turner has done some of the screenshots already, so expect to see his Tweets throughout …

(NOTE: When I say POINT here, I don’t mean my point. This is what USSF is arguing. As you’ll see, I find at least one of those points baffling.)

POINT 1: The games are different. Paragraph 1:

U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph and states that under applicable international rules, the players on the USMNT are forbidden from playing on the USWNT, that the USWNT and USMNT play at different times, in different locations, against different opponents, and are comprised of athletes who have different obligations, are compensated in fundamentally different ways, and enjoy different benefits; thus, USWNT players have no male “counterparts” who play for the USMNT.

The “forbidden from playing on USWNT” might be legally necessary, but it’s not a great way to start this if you’re trying to win over the public (which may or may not matter).

But the important part here is valid: Women’s soccer and men’s soccer are different. They work just as hard, yes. The games they play are different.

Then after the boilerplate stuff (yes, Alex Morgan exists and lives in town X and has played for the national team; Megan Rapinoe exists and lives …, etc.), USSF expounds upon that point.

Paragraph 39 of the WNT complaint talks about “the same job duties” and “similar working conditions.” It’s one of the weakest arguments the WNT raises, and USSF denies it in full.

And see Paragraphs 44-50, which surprisingly don’t go into much detail.

POINT 2: Hey, we didn’t say that …

USSF claims it has never “admitted that it pays its female player employees less than its male player employees and has gone so far as to claim that “’market realities are such that the women do not deserve to be paid equally to the men.’” The precise language is “U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph.” It’s Paragraph 2. Get used to seeing that phrase more and more.

Similarly …

POINT 3: No, the WNT’s revenues aren’t higher than the MNT’s. Except occasionally.

And this …

(The key part there is the smaller of Miki’s screenshots — I hate the way Twitter embeds restate the tweet to which it responds.)

POINT 4: The pay structures are apples and oranges.

“U.S. Soccer further states that no pay comparison can be made between the USWNT players, who earn guaranteed salaries and benefits, and the USMNT players, who are paid strictly on a match appearance fee basis.”

That’s Paragraph 51, and it’s restated in different words in the next two paragraphs.

Paragraph 54 of the WNT complaint is simply ridiculous. The claim that USSF denied the WNT’s request for equal pay is only true if the WNT asked for a contract without its salaries and benefits. (See Paragraph 62 below.) The claim that the WNT isn’t paid for games against teams outside the top 10 is absolutely wrong because, again, the women are on salary. They get paid even if they’re not called up for a game.

The next WNT argument is that a “similarly situated” MNT player would make much more than a WNT player (Paragraph 58). USSF reiterates that it’s simply not comparable.

What about charter flights? Paragraph 72 says “there are many factors” that determine charters. What I’ve been told, and what makes sense to me, is that the WNT hasn’t had charters because they simply don’t travel as a team. They flew to Scandinavia as individuals. The MNT has had situations in which it flies from qualifier to qualifier or Gold Cup game to Gold Cup game. This year, with the World Cup, expect WNT charters. (If they don’t do that, yikes.)

POINT 5: That’s simply not true

I’m guessing we will see the men’s CBA entered into evidence at some point here.

Then who rejected what?

Paragraph 62, WNT complaint:

During collective bargaining for a new contract, USSF rejected requests for compensation for the WNT players that would have been at least equal to that afforded to the male MNT players.

Paragraph 64, USSF response:

U.S. Soccer denies the remaining allegations in this paragraph and states the USWNTPA consistently rejected all proposals for a “pay-for-play” structure similar to the one in that the USMNT players accepted during the 2017 CBA negotiations.

I’m a little surprised no reporter who has the time to really dig into this (read: not me at the moment) has found out whether the WNT has ever asked to go without salaries and get the MNT pay structure.

POINT 6: Head-scratchers

USSF denies that it has complete control over whether the WNT plays on turf? (Paragraph 68)

SUMMARY

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women's soccer

Any defense for USA’s World Cup roster?

Posted on by Beau Dure

At the Total Soccer Show, Daryl Grove and Taylor Rockwell seem worried.

At The Guardian, Caitlin Murray seems slightly skeptical.

At The Equalizer (paid content), Chelsey Bush laments the absence of Casey Short.

At Soccer America, Paul Kennedy sees a couple of surprises.

At Twitter … no, I’m not going there.

I’m probably less worried than the Total Soccer Show guys, but they raised some interesting questions that I figured I’d tackle one by one.

Only one left back (Crystal Dunn), and she’s best in the attack? When is left back not a concern for almost any team? You don’t have to be left-footed to play left back, but it helps, and lefties are maybe 20 percent of soccer players. An NIH article finds only 8.2 percent of people in general are left-footed, though another 30.2 percent are “mixed-footed.” The study did not, however, ask participants to demonstrate this by putting a 30-yard cross into Alex Morgan’s path.

But Tierna Davidson can fill in. Once Kelley O’Hara is healthy, she would be an option, especially given the surplus of right backs.

All of which, though, leads to another question …

Only seven defenders? Some stories report the roster announcement as Ali Krieger over Casey Short. I don’t think it’s that simple. Krieger and Short are both deserving. So why not take both?

You can have eight defenders by answering the next question …

Why seven forwards? To be picky, “forward” isn’t necessarily a position as much as it’s an attitude. The difference between a 4-5-1 and a 4-3-3 is really how much ground you want the wingers to cover.

Also, Carli Lloyd isn’t exactly a stranger to midfield, so if she needed to play a No. 10 role, she certainly could.

But with such an attack-oriented team, it’s worth looking around the front line and midfield to see if anyone could way to bring aboard Casey Short as an eighth defender. And as great a story as she has, I think Jessica McDonald is the odd person out.

Where’s the backup defensive midfielder? Julie Ertz is unique. You don’t see a lot of center backs moved up one line on the field.

But who jumped in as the defensive midfielder in 2015 to replace the miscast Lauren Holiday? That would be Morgan Brian, the surprise pick for this roster only because she hasn’t been fit recently. Another option is Allie Long. In a pinch, Lindsey Horan.

It’s a pity not to see McCall Zerboni simply because she has fleshed out her game so nicely at an age in which most players consider themselves finished products. I always saw her a “physical” presence in midfield, and she’s still typically at or near the NWSL lead in fouls committed. (Horan and Long aren’t far behind.) But she has become a deft possession-oriented midfield as well, attempting and completing far more passes per 90 minutes now than she did in 2016.

For sake of argument, let’s compare Zerboni and Long’s numbers.

Make of that what you will.

So your tl;dr recap: I’d have taken Short instead of McDonald just to have another defender, but other than that, I don’t see any glaring holes. And that attack is about as strong as you’ll ever see.

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us soccer, women's soccer

The college bribery case and accused soccer coaches

Posted on by Beau Dure

Thanks a lot, Twitter, for sending me down another rabbit hole. I could be working on any number of things, including my transitions from guitar to keyboard and vice versa on the Better Than Ezra classic Good. (If you want to know where we’re performing, let me know.)

If you don’t know of the women’s soccer angle on the big college bribery scandal, perhaps in mourning that a star of the great show SportsNight is caught up in all this, check out the story linked here:

I responded the only way I can think of — a bad joke about Mallory Pugh leaving UCLA early. (Hey, Isackson played as many regular-season UCLA games as Pugh did, right?)

https://twitter.com/soccercanales/status/1108586560797069312

That would be Amanda Cromwell, who played with the WNT and in the WUSA before going on a strong coaching career — a long stint at Central Florida, then was hired in 2013 — on my birthday in the spring — at UCLA.

Andrea raises a good question. Off to research I go. After a dead end at PACER, I found that Heavy.com had already embedded the Massachusetts indictment against Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin and many other people, including Bruce and Davina Isackson, parents of former UCLA women’s soccer roster person Lauren Isackson.

This is not the complaint against UCLA men’s coach Jorge Salcedo and other coaches, but we’ll get to that.

The Isackson affidavit

Go to page 172 of Heavy.com’s document (you can also just go to Scribd). That’s page 107 of an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Laura Smith.

According to this …

The Isacksons first tried USC via former USC women’s soccer assistant Laura Janke (more on her later). Former USC women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin (more on him) forwarded Isackson’s info to Salcedo in May 2016. In June, she got into UCLA. Not sure what happened at USC, which was apparently Lauren Isackson’s first choice.

Here’s where the affidavit gets quite serious: “On or about July 7, 2016, CW-1 directed a payment of $100,000 from one of the CWF charitable accounts to a sports marketing company controlled by Salcedo.” Then another to Koshroshahin for $25,000.

(“CW-1” is Cooperating Witness-1, who has agreed to plead guilty to many charges with the hope of obtaining leniency. The affidavit stresses that his information has been corroborated many other ways, including wiretaps and emails.)

Cromwell is not mentioned in any of this.

The Salcedo indictment

PACER records show a case was opened and terminated against Salcedo in California on March 12. Lawyers can better explain what happened, but in any case, everything is taking place in Massachusetts. I mention the California indictment only because the FBI agent who signed a warrant here is named Diamond Outlaw. Seriously. His or her handwriting is worse than mine.

Anyway … on March **5**, a sealed indictment was filed in Massachusetts against Salcedo, Khosroshahin, Janke and 10 others. The case is District Court 1:19-cr-10081-IT-11.

I love legal documents’ need to state the obvious: “ACT, Inc. … administers the ACT exam, a standardized test that is widely used, etc.” All of the schools involved are listed as “highly selective” except San Diego, which is “selective.”

Khosroshahin is identified as USC’s head women’s soccer coach until November 2013. At the outset, it doesn’t say how he has been employed since. Janke is identified as a former USC assistant coach through January 2014. Again, what was she doing after that?

Janke is accused of creating a “falsified athletic profile” on behalf of “Yale Applicant 1” in November 2017.

Quote 1:

55. In a subsequent email, Singer instructed JANKE to add to the profile that Yale Applicant 1 had been on the “JR National Development Team in China,” noting, “we are saying she got hurt this past spring, so was not recruited till now as she got her release late summer.”

Now over to USC. The date is not immediately specified.

62. In exchange for these payments, JANKE and KHOSROSHAHIN designated four children of Singer’s clients as recruits for the USC women’s soccer team, despite the fact that none of those children played competitive soccer.

It wasn’t just soccer. Janke is accused of helping a prospective USC rower with no rowing experience in September 2016.

The UCLA section repeats a trail we saw earlier, also in 2016 — Khosroshanin takes falsified profile, hands it over to Salcedo, and a soccer player who hasn’t played elite soccer gets into UCLA.

There’s a brief mention of another accusation from October 2018 involving a men’s soccer recruit who hadn’t played competitive soccer.

Salcedo and Janke are not mentioned again.

Cromwell is not mentioned at all.

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pro soccer, us soccer, women's soccer

Welcome, drive-by pundits. Can we introduce you to the NWSL?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’ll toss this into the “maybe tying pay to revenue isn’t such a good idea” argument, and please don’t take one part out of context …

Over the past week, per the daily Soccer America newsletter, eight MLS games and one CONCACAF game had better attendance than the WNT’s game in Tampa.

What does this mean? Let’s ponder.

Marketing: You may argue that the WNT game wasn’t properly marketed. Possibly. I don’t know how to quantify it. I just know people said that about MLS for years.

If I knew where to advertise, my books would sell more and my blog would’ve made money. So I’m the last guy to ask about that, and I’m interested in hearing ideas.

Maybe MLS teams have the advantage of being in town all year every year. But at the same time, fans can see them play whenever, and how often is the WNT in Tampa? Shouldn’t fans be taking advantage of that rare opportunity?

No, MLS isn’t the MNT. Maybe the MNT isn’t properly marketed outside of Mexico games, either. You can support the WNT’s legal case and still say the MNT games should be treated better – or ticket prices should be lower. If it becomes either/or, everyone suffers.

But in any case, drive-by media pundits who only know World Cups and Olympics miss the boat with WoSo attendance triumphalism. They have no idea that tens of thousands show up to see Zlatan. Rooney. Martinez. Tim Howard’s farewell tour. Jordan Morris. Efrain Martinez. (Google him.) Would you rather see the since-departed Almiron or the MNT? Thought so.

Maybe it would help if everyone, including the drive-byers, paid more attention to the NWSL. Then they’d have the advantage of a consistent community presence that MLS teams enjoy.

Not that the NWSL has done particularly well in marketing, either. Maybe a new broadcast deal will help. Assuming they get one.

The international challenge: Women’s soccer won’t thrive on the SheBelieves Cup alone. Nor can it rely on a big boost every quadrennium with a win or thrilling run to the final in the World Cup or Olympics. Not with European teams turning up the heat. England has crashed the party. France, propelled by two big-spending clubs, has been there for a while. Germany and Sweden never really left. Then all those teams were bested in Euro 2017 by the Netherlands and Denmark. Then those teams fell far short in the Algarve Cup, in which Norway beat Poland in the final.

Yikes. Then factor in Canada, Brazil and Japan. Don’t count out Australia.

And this isn’t a bad thing. We all want the game to grow internationally. Look at the struggles softball has endured because it’s basically a three-country sport (USA, Japan, Australia). No one’s kicking women’s soccer out of the Olympics as they did with softball. The competition’s too good.

The revenue argument: So suppose the WNT and MNT both tie their salaries (WNT) and bonuses (WNT and MNT) to revenue. Looks great for the WNT — now. Suppose the WNT doesn’t make the final in either the World Cup or Olympics over the next two years. That’ll make a dent in revenue, and that’s actually when we’ll want U.S. Soccer to spend more on women’s soccer.

If U.S. Soccer was really as dastardly as people say (and, at times, it has been), they’d say, “Oh, tie it to revenue? Sure!” Then they’d cackle as the revenue drops when 2016 proves not to be a fluke.

As I said in the last post, I don’t have answers here. I just know that yelling “equal pay for equal play” and other slogans won’t solve the problem. It’ll take some serious attention to detail.

So I’ll write these wonky posts. And maybe the handful of you who read them will be able to ask questions and advocate for things to be better — not just with a short-term victory for Jeff Kessler but (also?) a long-term victory for the sport.

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