Category: us soccer
No, the WNT didn’t lose in court because the MNT lost in Couva
The court ruling that decimated the U.S. women’s soccer team’s lawsuit had a peculiar irony that didn’t escape the sharp eyes of many who read the case: The women’s earned more than the men, not just over the course of five years but per game, because the men failed to qualify for the World Cup and therefore missed out on a ton of bonus money. And that fact was Point No. 1 in the decision.
Yes, that could be another verse for Alanis Morissette to consider.
No, it didn’t cost the WNT the case. It just saved Judge R. Gary Klausner a bit of time. “The Court need not address the remaining elements of Plaintiffs’ prima facie case,” Klausner wrote, surely with a sigh of relief that he didn’t have to delve into anything more complex than that.
Both sides presented plenty of hypotheticals; e.g., whether the MNT would make more under the WNT deal or vice versa. This period of time just gave the judge a scenario that he couldn’t dismiss as implausible — because it actually happened.
In any case, a lot of analyses are overlooking the more damning part of Klausner’s ruling. The women willingly traded higher bonuses for greater stability. They can’t turn around and complain that they would have been paid more under a deal they didn’t actually want.
That fact also saved Klausner some time. He didn’t have to walk through the four-part test of the WNT’s legal burden that Elon professor Andrew Haile, a former Davidson soccer player, spelled out in an Oregon Law Review piece. Klausner only really addressed No. 2: Rate of Pay.
The judge didn’t deal with No. 1: The “Same Establishment,” on which U.S. Soccer had a legitimate argument that the MNT and WNT “effectively operate in different markets,” as Haile said. Nor did he address No. 3: “Equal Work,” on which Haile was more bullish on the WNT winning. The USSF had plenty of sound arguments on No. 4: Pay differences for reasons “Other Than Sex” — including revenue generation.
Here’s where we find another irony, one that acts as a bit of a counterweight to the first one. Yes, the men’s failure to qualify for the World Cup suppressed their pay. But it also suppressed the team’s revenue, which had been running well ahead of the WNT’s in the years before this all started in 2016. (The exception was a World Cup year, but that difference hardly made up the differences in 2011-15.)
So if the case had gone to court back when the EEOC complaint that became this lawsuit was filed in 2016, before the men’s disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign, U.S. Soccer would have had that much stronger of an argument that the disparity is due to reasons “other than sex”: Just look at the revenue.
That’s not necessarily fair. U.S. Soccer is a nonprofit charged with growing the game in the United States. That’s why it pays for things like Paralympic soccer and development programs that are guaranteed to lose money. They should be supporting women’s soccer even if they lose money. (In the strictest sense, they do, but the women’s team certainly helps bring in the sponsorship and marketing money that is by far the biggest revenue-driver in the USSF budget.)
Which brings us back to the point you’ve seen from so many knowledgeable people in women’s soccer such as Andrew Das, Kelsey Trainor and Julie Foudy: Any more progress the women make will be made at the negotiating table that they’ve avoided for a while. (It’s certainly possible that U.S. Soccer made that table unpleasant at times.)
So the suit may have served a purpose beyond any settlement the WNT may get on the remaining points on support for the team aside from paychecks. That’s the conclusion of Caitlin Murray, who literally wrote the book on the WNT and points out that the suit sparked a strong wave of public attention and pressure that has forced U.S. Soccer to address a few issues already.
Unless the women appeal, which would be an appalling decision akin to when MLS players — also represented by Jeff Kessler — dragged out their case two unnecessary years, everyone has a chance to avoid embarrassing situations.
The WNT can avoid having their case picked apart in court. They can avoid having Meghan Klingenberg, Kelley O’Hara and union chief Becca Roux called by the Federation, which found items in their depositions that they believe favored their side.
The Federation can avoid the optics of cross-examining beloved celebrities. Even if they’re not asking the insulting questions about skill and physical abilities that prompted USSF President Carlos Cordeiro’s resignation and an abrupt reshuffling of their legal team, USSF lawyers surely would love to avoid questioning Alex Morgan (pending pregnancy) and Megan Rapinoe while journalists who don’t know the details of the case sit with poised skewers.
And the Federation finally has the opportunity to wriggle out of a situation it created by accident — an MNT contract with World Cup bonuses they’ll never need to pay the men and can’t afford to pay the women.
The MNT won’t like hearing this, but World Cup bonus money is the whole reason the Federation is in this mess. When U.S. Soccer agreed to a deal that would pay the MNT north of $25 million if they won the Cup, a significant but not overwhelming chunk of FIFAs $38 million prize money, they didn’t anticipate that the women would see the same money, which would have given the Federation a loss of more than $20 million on FIFA’s laughable $4 million prize money for the Women’s World Cup.
In Australia and Norway, the federations have reached “equal pay” deals because women accepted equal percentages of prize money, not equal payouts. The USWNT certainly wouldn’t have accepted that calculation in their request for back pay. U.S. Soccer probably would have.
FIFA has pledged to double the prize money for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. But unless they double that figure and then double it again, we’ll still have a large disparity in the winnings available for the MNT and the WNT.
Everything outside the World Cup bonuses can and should be as equal as possible. U.S. Soccer might not accept the argument that the SheBelieves Cup would be as important as the Gold Cup or Copa America if only they asked FIFA to recognize it as such, but the details aren’t impossible to work out.
Seriously — the women made that argument about the SheBelieves Cup. If you want another bit of irony, just bear in mind that U.S. Soccer created that competition for the sole purpose of boosting the women’s game.
And that’ll give us one last opportunity to look at the women’s court filings and see the contortions their lawyers made. These are from the Plaintiffs’ Statement of Additional Genuine Disputes in Support of Their Motion for Partial Summary Judgment:
Disputed that the “results of friendly matches, such as those in the SheBelieves Cup or Tournament of Nations, are not as heavily weighted in FIFA’s team rankings as those in non-friendly competitions such as the Gold Cup, Copa America, or the FIFA Confederations Cup.” This purported “fact” is only Mr. Gulati’s opinion.
Sunil Gulati would need very little time to produce the documents backing up this “opinion.” Actually, the women also get more heavily weighted rankings from continental competitions than they do from the SheBelieves Cup.
Disputed that “in the world of international soccer there is more prestige involved in winning an official continental championship, such as the Gold Cup or Copa America, than winning a friendly tournament such as the SheBelieves Cup or Tournament of Nations. This additional prestige results from factors such as the number of participants in the tournaments, the fact that the continental championships are continental championships in the first place (and not friendly matches), the fact that they include knockout rounds and a final match, and the comparative age of the tournaments.” This purported “fact” is only Mr. Gulati’s opinion.
Good luck disputing that in court.
USSF has acknowledged that it has not attempted to register the SheBelieves Cup and the Tournament of Nations, tournaments it hosts, with FIFA, and that FIFA’s recognition may not be needed.
What does that even mean?
How much money did both sides have to pay their lawyers to come up and refute such ridiculous points? Billable hours aren’t cheap.
The women might not get as much back pay as they wanted. But we can turn to the future and figure out how to solve this.
Let’s go back to Julie Foudy again for her solution: Pool everything together and split it …
The arguments against:
- If the MNT made a decent World Cup run, they’d end up making less money than they would under their own deal.
- Each team, likely within each union, would need to figure out how to split their money.
The arguments for:
- Figuring out how to split that money within each team may be a good thing. In the WNT, we’d have to hope they do more to get money to more people in the talent pool. As it stands now, the difference between being the 23rd player and being the 27th player in the pool can be the difference between a solid six-figure payout and the need to find a side hustle.
- One Nation, One Team. While the MNT union has mastered the art of being performatively woke in its statements backing the WNT, even though a $66m payout to the WNT — especially given the COVID-19 budget cuts — would effectively kill any hope they have of getting a raise in the new deal to replace the one that expired 16 months ago, there’s a rift between some MNT fans and WNT fans. Shockingly, bashing the MNT apparently didn’t sit well with a lot of supporters. Split the pot equally, and then every MNT success helps the WNT and vice versa.
- No more lawsuits. Equal pay. Surely no more strike threats either. As revenue increases, player pay would increase as well.
So if you’re looking for a way to inspire the next generation of women’s players, make a deal that ensures labor peace and equal pay (however they can define it) now and down the road. And try to leave a bit of money to develop the younger players who’ll form the generation after that.
U.S. women’s soccer case: Witness list
If the U.S. women’s team lawsuit proceeds to trial, it’ll take a while. The parties have just released their witness list, and it’s a nice 25 pages. (That means I spent $2.50 at PACER, so please buy one of my books as compensation. You can now read the details for free at RECAP.)
Here we go …
PLAINTIFFS
Plaintiffs reserve the right to call more. USSF is seeking to exclude Cook and Goldberg.
Asterisks are witnesses on both plaintiffs’ and USSF list. Time estimates are combined (in other words, when USSF says 1.25 hours, that should be total).
- *Alex Morgan (live – time expected: 1.25 hours plantiffs, 1.25 USSF) — but due to pregnancy, Christen Press may be called in her place. If Press is called, USSF expects only 0.75 hours.
- Megan Rapinoe (live – 1.25/1.25)
- Carli Lloyd (live – 1.25/1.25)
- Becky Sauerbrunn (live – 2.5/1.25)
- Finnie Cook, economics expert witness (live – 3/2)
- Caren Goldberg, human resources expert witness (live – 3/2)
- Roger Noll, economics expert witness called for rebuttal to USSF experts Carlyn Irwin and Justin McCrary (live – 2/1.5)
- “USSF through designees Jay Berhalter, Sunil Gulati and Tom King” (by deposition video — 5 hours plaintiffs, 3 hours USSF)
- *Sunil Gulati (live or deposition video – 3/4)
- Jay Berhalter (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
- Carlos Cordeiro (live or deposition video – 2/1.5)
- *Tom King (USSF managing director of administration, live or deposition video – 3/4.5)
- Pinky Raina (USSF’s relatively new chief financial officer, live or deposition video – 1/2)
- Jill Ellis (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
- *Rich Nichols (Hope Solo’s lawyer, but more relevant to this case is his role as former WNTPA executive director, by deposition video – 0.75/2)
- *John Langel (WNTPA executive director before Nichols, by deposition video – 1.25/2.5)
- “The Coca-Cola Company through designee John Seiler” (by deposition video – 1/0.25)
- “Visa U.S.A. through designee Ashley Fisher” (by deposition video – 0.75/0.25)
USSF
USSF reserves the right to add more. Plaintiffs are seeking to exclude Moses, Marsteller, Hopfinger and Levine.
Asterisks are different here — these are witnesses USSF will call “only if need arises.” Is USSF that confident?
- *Kay Bradley (USSF brand director, live – 1.5 USSF/1 plaintiffs)
- *Jill Ellis (see above)
- Sunil Gulati (see above)
- Amy Hopfinger (USSF director of events, live – 1.5/1)
- Carlyn Irwin (forensic accounting expert, live – 3.0/1)
- Tom King (see above)
- Meghan Klingenberg (video deposition – 0.75/0.5)
- John Langel (see above)
- *Lisa Levine (former USSF general counsel, not the one involved with recent controversies, live – 1.5/1)
- Paul Marstellar (USSF director of event revenue, live – 1.5/1)
- Justin McCrary (economics expert witness, live – 3/2)
- Philip Miscimarra (labor economics expert witness, live – 2/1)
- Alex Morgan (see above)
- Ross Moses (USSF director of analytics and research, live – 1.25/1)
- Rich Nichols (see above)
- Kelley O’Hara (deposition designation – 1.25/0.5)
- Christen Press (see above – note that USSF doesn’t distinguish that she would be called only if Morgan can’t testify. “Her testimony includes her own admissions,” USSF says.)
- Pinky Raina (see above)
- Rebecca Roux (WNTPA executive director, live or video deposition – 1/1)
- *Russ Sauer (retired lawyer who represented USSF in CBA talks – 1.5/1)
So a few thoughts:
Klingenberg, O’Hara and Roux – seems interesting that USSF is calling them and plaintiffs are not.
Coca-Cola and VISA – relevant because plaintiffs, in motion to exclude evidence of Soccer United Marketing revenue, make the case that these sponsors inquired about sponsoring only the WNT but were told SUM bundles MNT, WNT and everything else.
Will the U.S. women’s back pay demands hurt future women’s soccer players?
I’ve been covering women’s sports for about three decades now. Not as 100% of my job — through most of my employment, I’ve had a lot of editing and online responsibilities as well as reporting — but I’ve amassed a considerable amount of women’s soccer stories (and a book) and a lot of women’s coverage in my Olympic sports work.
Lately, that’s been less game coverage and more issue coverage. How can we keep young athletes safe from sexual predators like Larry Nassar? How do Olympic sports athletes support themselves? How can an athlete stay in a sport in which women have been denied a spot in the Games?
It hasn’t been good for my career. I lost money on my book, though I could’ve done a better job reporting it. An editor (a woman, and she was a great boss) once told me I should cut back on covering women’s soccer, and I didn’t.
I’ve also delved deeply into U.S. Soccer finances. Haven’t made a lot of money on that, either. The Guardian and Soccer America are good to me, but I’ve done so much extra work on this that my income is far under minimum wage.
I’ve also covered youth soccer. It’s a mess. That’s a big reason why I have a book out now called Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup.
But it also has the potential to ensure that the 2019 Women’s World Cup win will be the USA’s last. The rest of the world is catching ahead, and staying ahead will require well-spent money.
So when I see that the U.S. women are looking for $66 million, I have to go back to the math.
U.S. Soccer, of course, has countered with a motion for a summary judgment of $0. I’m guessing negotiations aren’t going well.
And we should say at the outset that such motions, no matter how many volumes of documents are printed in support, still don’t force the court to play “all or nothing,” as the eminent sports law professor Steven Bank points out.
But if the women were seeking $10 million, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. $20 million? Possibly.
Here are a few points demonstrating that neither the Fed ($0) nor the players ($66 million) have taken a justifiable stance.
$66 million is more than even the most generous computation I can find.
I ran the numbers last summer, using the assumption that the U.S. women would ask for the same bonuses the U.S. men would have received had they won the World Cup. That wouldn’t meant the women, who under the current CBA get close to 100% of FIFA prize money if they win (once you include the Victory Tour bonus, which is paid on top of their regular pay for four friendlies), would have received more than 1,300% of FIFA prize money in 2015. (The winning country received $2 million. The men’s bonus for winning would’ve been more than $26 million.)
You can make your own calculations and run different scenarios if you like using this spreadsheet. You can also download from GitHub.
The Federation’s mandate is to grow the game, which will make it possible for the men to get better and the women to stay on top
A lot of people look at pay in a vacuum, as if U.S. Soccer is an NBA team and players should get a specific part of the revenue. But we’re not talking about billionaire owners here. (Yes, we’re talking about overpaid executives — we’ll get to that.) This is a nonprofit organization that is responsible for coaching education, referee education, Paralympic soccer, youth national teams, etc.
The Federation is way behind other federations in this respect
U.S. Soccer doesn’t have the scouting or coaching infrastructure that other countries have.
That’s one reason the men haven’t done as well as anyone would like.
That’s one reason the women’s youth national teams haven’t done well recently, either, and that bodes ill for the future.
The Federation is trying to address this by spending a pile of assets it accumulated, much of it by hosting the Copa America Centenario, on new programs
The initial idea was to spend it down to $50 million. Thanks to legal fees, that’s now $42 million.
Which is less than $66 million.
That said, we don’t know how well the Federation is spending that money
Take a look at the Federation’s budgets — not just in FY 2019 but in past years as well.
A couple of things seem sensible. They’re spending more on the U.S. Open Cup and much more on referee and coaching education. They’ve also spent a bit on technology so they can keep track of players and shore up the Fed’s awful web sites. They’ve launched a terrific Innovate to Grow grant program that was a big hit among state federations (who deserve none of the blame for the Federation’s spending or contract negotiations) at the Annual General Meeting.
But in the Annual General Meeting book (see AGM books tab on the spreadsheet linked above), they have a $3 million line item for “Various.” And executive pay is out of whack. Maybe they can go without replacing Jay Berhalter. (Not Gregg. They still need a men’s coach.) Maybe they don’t need to hire so many staffers and relocate them to Chicago.
Still, the new CEO will probably command a lot of money, maybe even more than Dan Flynn made. They need someone good.
It’d be cool if they hired a woman, right? Maybe a former Board of Directors member?
Historically, the Federation hasn’t treated the women as well as they should have
There’s a reason the women went on strike in 2000. There’s a reason they filed an EEOC complaint. And the new collective bargaining agreement should have equalized some things that could’ve been equalized. (You could argue that hiring lawyers who have lost multiple times to U.S. Soccer was a bad idea on the women’s part.)
Hank Steinbrecher is gone. Dan Flynn just left. Sunil Gulati is an ex officio member of the board.
And to be sure, they’ve invested more into women’s soccer than other federations. Yes, even Norway and Australia, with their much-hyped “equal pay” deals that (A) don’t account for the differences in prize money that the U.S. women clearly want to address and (B) don’t pay either team that well, especially in Norway.
But they left a mess. There’s no reason the women’s CBA shouldn’t have equal bonuses for friendlies at the very least.
One important myth to debunk here: Typically, the WNT’s revenue is not equal to the men. Not close. But the women can still make a case. Go back to the notion that the Federation is a nonprofit that’s supposed to grow the game. They’re not going to make a profit on beach soccer (which has a new women’s team), Para soccer and youth programs, but they have to do so anyway. They may not make a profit on women’s soccer, but it’s their mandate to support it equally anyway.
I’ll write more for various outlets on this at some point, but I hope everything above is helpful.
AGM wrap: U.S. Soccer board obstructs and women’s soccer moves forward … but this one guy …
The U.S. Soccer Annual General Meeting provided expected drama at some points, unexpected non-drama at others, and unexpected drama at others.
I’ll get to the bit about the guy who called out the women’s national team for its sportsmanship.
Going bit by bit …
The Powers That Be may once again find themselves at war with the state reps.
U.S. Soccer’s National Council includes representatives from every state youth association (Youth Council), every state adult soccer association (Adult Council) and every pro league (Pro Council, dominated by MLS). Each group gets an equal share of the votes, a little more than 25% per Council. The Athletes Council, most consisting of those who played for a national team less than 10 years ago, is required by law to have 20% of the vote. The rest go to an assortment of associate organizations, individual board members, past presidents and Life Members (that’ll come up later).
Any organization can make a proposal to change the bylaws or policy manual. This year, the Metropolitan DC-Virginia Soccer Association (adult) had a policy proposal to slash registration fees across the board, except for pro leagues. Organizations would pay $5,000 rather than $10,000. Youth players’ fees would be 10 cents, down from $1. Adult fees would get a similar cut, from $2 to 20 cents. The goal was to erase barriers to participation for low-income families.
To get through all this, let’s go to the video …
At 38:45, when they’re about to vote to approve the budget, the MDCVSA rep stands up to get clarification on the procedure of the day. Can we approve the budget now, he asks, but then discuss the policy proposal later and, if it passes, get the staff to go back and adjust the budget? The answer is yes.
Fast forward to 53:15 for the big showdown between the MDCVSA rep and parliamentarian Michael Malamut, who says the board has decided not to recommend the dues changes, and that means the policy proposal is out of order.
Block out 10-15 minutes to watch what happens next. The MDCVSA rep was prepared, leading to a discussion of Roberts Rules of Order and such. Malamut, who’s been doing this forever, also knew his stuff.
No one raised his voice, though there was some interrupting. It was certainly tense. Under pressure, Malamut said the chair of the meeting has a decision to make, effectively punting to president Carlos Cordeiro to weigh in.
Eventually, Bylaw 212 is cited, supposedly to demonstrate that membership fees are recommended by the board and approved by the National Council by a majority vote. I don’t see that in the 2019-20 bylaws, but let’s assume for a minute that it’s correct. Does that means the only opportunity the National Council (again, all the members) had to question the membership fees was when the budget was discussed thirty minutes earlier? Or not at all?
Cordeiro agreed with Malamut but offered the olive branch of a task force. It may not be much, but it’s something.
I’ll get to the bit about the guy who called out the women’s national team for its sportsmanship.
The next policy proposal, essentially to require more detail in board and committee minutes, also caused some consternation between the representative (from Cal North), Malamut and Cordeiro. The Cal North man offered some concessions to exempt certain committees, at least for this year. That wore down the resistance, and the proposal was approved by a wide margin, to my surprise.
Earlier, West Virginia withdrew its proposal to require equal representation between men’s and women’s leagues in the same tier (in other words, MLS and NWSL). The Rules Committee had said it should be a bylaw rather than a policy. West Virginia’s Dave Laraba, who could probably be elected USSF president and Santa Claus in the same year if it was up to the states, said he respectfully disagree with the Rules Committee but would work toward re-submitting next year.
“We do urge the Pro Council to deal with this issue on their own, which they have the power to do,” Laraba said.
The weirdest state-related thing: Illinois’ adult association, which drew attention two years ago as one of Eric Wynalda’s most outspoken supporters in the presidential race, didn’t even speak on behalf of its proposals on Pro League Standards (punted because the Federation is being sued on that matter — feel free to contact the NASL about dropping that suit so the Fed can actually discuss this) and procurement (voted down rather heavily, in part because it was incomprehensible).
I’ll get to the bit about the guy who called out the women’s national team for its sportsmanship.
Cindy Cone was re-elected as vice president. This was contested but not contentious.
One year after being unanimously elected to fill the VP slot left empty when previous VP Carlos Cordeiro was elected president, the Hall of Famer won convincingly but far from unanimously over John Motta.
Worth remembering: The Athletes Council surely gave its 20% to Cone. The Pro Council probably gave all or most of its vote to her as well. Motta is the U.S. Adult Soccer Association president, so the Adult Council’s 25% and change surely went mostly to him. So the Youth Council and miscellaneous votes probably leaned toward Cone.
In any case, the candidates were gracious. Motta’s still on the board, and he’s anything but vindictive.
I’ll get to the bit about the guy who called out the women’s national team for its sportsmanship.
The good news: Everyone loves the Federation’s Innovate to Grow grant program, which is funding several initiatives on women’s coaching education.
Paired with the newly announced Jill Ellis Scholarship Fund, which has more than $200,000 in donations so far, the Federation is clearly taking steps to address a long-standing problem.
And let’s be clear — if national team pay is tripled, programs like this will be in serious jeopardy. Do the math. If you end up with a choice between training 200 female coaches and helping national teamers upgrade their cars, which would you choose?
I’ll get to the bit about the guy who called out the women’s national team for its sportsmanship.
Some members don’t understand legal obligations. An Athletes Council proposal to put athletes on grievance panels was a no-brainer. Literally. The Federation can’t afford to think about it because legal trends point rather heavily toward giving sports governing bodies no choice in the matter.
And yet some people voted against it. In an era in which legal fees are taking a big bite out of the Federation’s image and bottom line, they were happy to invite more lawsuits. Just to spite the Athletes Council?
OK, fine. Here you go …
Someone took issue with the women’s national team’s celebrations in the World Cup.
The man in question is Stephen Flamhaft, who’s been around forever. He is NOT on the board or in any other position of power. He’s one guy. Some people applauded, and they must have been near the microphones, because people at the AGM said they were sparse and that there were boos as well. Then several speakers took issue with him.
This isn’t the first time Flamhaft has made waves from the National Council floor. In 2005, he made a speech that reads like a plea to let board officers work until they drop. (See my 1998-2009 piece again.) In 2016, he rose to denounce Chuck Blazer, which was more controversial than you might think. See my 2010-2017 piece, then this thread.
This time, his comments were ill-timed and ill-stated. There’s no need to dredge this up again.
But, just like last summer, the Twitter reaction was so far overboard that it can’t be reached with a life preserver.
A little perspective — and yes, I know I’m speaking from male cis hetero financially comfortable privilege here. I’m also speaking from experience. While I sometimes agree with the “OK Boomer” sentiment, a lot of you whipper-snappers are just ageist. (Besides, I’m Gen X. We were handed Nirvana (good band) and Reality Bites (horrible movie) as our cultural touchstones, and we’ve been ignored ever since while the Millennials and Boomers …
So anyway …
Earlier this week, I watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary I Hate Christian Laettner, about the legendary Duke player (legendary for college play; in the NBA, he was a one-time All-Star, and that’s about it) and the fact that hating him was, and to some extent still is, a national pastime.
Did he commit a violent crime? No. He’s … arrogant. Overexuberant. A fierce competitor.
And people hate him.
That’s not surprising. A lot of people hate arrogant athletes.
And male athletes get pissed off when opponents celebrate too much. In baseball, if you flip your bat or do a slow home run trot, you may get a fastball to the ribs. Or the benches may clear. All part of baseball’s unwritten rules, much like the code (which is clear as mud, to be honest) in hockey.
The typical men’s sports controversy lasts for 24 hours. It feeds a cycle of talk radio and TV, then dies.
The WNT’s celebrations against Thailand stayed in the news because the women kept making reference to it and because of the rampant and grossly unfair accusations that anyone who questions the WNT’s behavior is sexist and misogynist.
Period.
Of course, there are some knuckle-dragging idiots out there. Always are. If you ever click a trending topic on Twitter and sort by “latest” instead of “top,” you’ll think civilization is speeding toward collapse. (It might be, which is another reason the U.S. men will never win the World Cup. I don’t cover that one in the book.)
But the defensiveness is over the top. It was last summer, and it was yesterday, where a lot of the ridiculous arguments popped up again.
They’re jealous because the men don’t win anything.
The Gender War is far from productive, and it’s unfair to current MNT players who face a much more difficult gauntlet of competition along with entrenched historical and cultural factors (see my book) that the women have never had to face.
I’ll argue that this can be fixed, though, by borrowing from Australia’s “equal pay” (it’s not) solution. The prize money for World Cups and other tournaments would still need to be addressed, but other money is put in one pool and evenly split between the men and women. That way, the men and women don’t just have a patriotic and cultural incentive to cheer for each other. They have have a financial incentive as well.
The women could beat the men
No.
The result making the rounds last year was a scrimmage between FC Dallas’ U15 team and the WNT, which ended 5-2 to the little guys. A fact check argued that the result was “decontextualized” because it was a “structured practice.” Perhaps, but the reason the WNT was playing a U15 team — and not even the full national team, just one very good club U15 team — was because it would be a comparable level of athleticism. It’s actually a common practice. They scrimmage youth teams because they would gain nothing by trying to match up with full-grown men.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
We don’t build up Mikaela Shiffrin at the expense of Bode Miller. We can celebrate Allyson Felix even though her best time (21.69) in her best event (200 meters) was beaten by more than 70 male runners in the 2016 Olympics. We don’t fret about how Elena Delle Donne would fare in the post against … I don’t know. I don’t follow the NBA that closely.
Athletes are human.
They’re not people to be put on pedestals. Some of them are decent people. Some are even great. Even they make the occasional questionable decision.
A bigger issue in women’s soccer is coaching. It’s appropriate that Ellis is the namesake of a scholarship fund because she is the only woman among the 49 U.S. coaches to earn the new-ish Pro license. The United Soccer Coaches convention is so overwhelmingly male it makes a Star Trek convention look like Lilith Fair.
(For the record, I loved Lilith Fair.)
No one benefits from BS. No one benefits from misplaced priorities.
We need more women to stay in the game and coach. We need better youth development for men and women.
That’s why I point out the short-sighted and divisive arguments men’s and women’s senior national team advocates make in the pay debates. That’s why I think we need to find a way to get men’s and women’s fans and advocates on the same page.
One Nation One Team, indeed.
So we’re taunting the men’s national team over the women’s national team’s success, even while the men speak up for better pay for women. We’re touting proposals to pay the national teams at the expense of programs that grow the game, the opposite of what other (better) federations do.
So is Flamhaft a bit of a dinosaur? Sure.
But at some point, we should quit bashing the low-hanging fruit and climb a little higher on the tree.
(OK, Gen Xer.)
United Soccer Coaches convention preview: Tough choices for women’s soccer fans and media
The world’s largest gathering of tracksuits will be in Baltimore this year, starting Jan. 15.
The bad news for casual fans is that there’s no MLS draft to let people shout slogans at each other this year. The other bad news is that United Soccer Coaches still doesn’t have a cool acronym, with “USC” taken by two universities. I’m still pushing “UnSocCo.”
The good news is that I’ll have a book signing. Details to come.
If you don’t have a credential, which can be a budget-buster unless your club is picking up the costs or you’re a respected media member, you should be able to follow along on Twitter to get some insights.
The schedule is out. Here’s a quick list of interesting sessions with the places I’m likely to be (not that you’re planning around me) in bold.
WEDNESDAY
As usual, this is a day of meetings, exhibitor set-up and a few evening coaching sessions for those who plan to get some sort of certification.
5:30 p.m.: “Small-Sided Games to Improve Goal-Scoring,” with the always insightful UnSocCo coaching director Ian Barker.
THURSDAY
Still a lot of meetings, but the coaching courses really pick up here, and we start to see some general-interest sessions.
9:30 a.m.: “The Past, The Present, and The Future of the Latino Coach and Player,” with Julio Serrano, the new chair of UnSocCo’s Latino Coaches Advocacy Group and the director of coaches at Heart of the City, which works to develop soccer programs for underserved communities in Waukegan, Ill.
9:30 a.m.: “Identifying and Developing the Future Female Player,” with U.S. Soccer staff. Please, WoSo media, make sure you have someone there.
9:30 a.m.: The Red Bulls will be talking about their youth-to-pro pathway.
(moved from Friday) 9:30 a.m.: “The Significant Influence Coaches have & the Role they Play When it Comes to Body Image in Their Players,” an especially timely session given the light shed on weight-shaming when runner Mary Cain went public
11 a.m.: “Sports as a Vehicle for Change” sounds kind of buzzword-ish, but the presenter is Haley Carter, who has walked the walk as a coach with Afghanistan’s women’s team and as an advocate for #VetsForGunReform (she’s also a decorated Marine veteran). Seems strange to get this far into a resume without mentioning that she played in the NWSL, but that’s just how impressive she is.
It’d be great to have WoSo people in the crowd, but this unfortunately conflicts with …
11 a.m.: NWSL draft
The early afternoon has a lot of sessions about coaching specifics and club management — valuable for those who have to make budgets work, but not something you’re likely to retweet from home.
2:30 p.m.: “Principles of Coaching In A Non-Traditional Setting” by two staffers from the U.S. Soccer Foundation, another group that walks the walk, even while they’re in a lawsuit with the federation.
(corrected) 2:30 p.m.: Society for American Soccer History Open Meeting. I’ll be presenting my book. And yes, “Open” means “open” — no credential needed. It’ll run two hours, and it’ll be worth it. (It’s not just me, of course. They’ll schedule some cool stuff, and you won’t find a group of more knowledgeable soccer historians.)
4 p.m.: “21st Century Soccer Schedule,” with a heavyweight trio of men’s college coaches — Maryland’s Sasho Cirovski, Stanford’s Jeremy Gunn and North Carolina’s Carlos Somoana — surely set to press the case for a fall-spring NCAA schedule.
4 p.m.: “Reality Check: The Barriers Women in Soccer Still Face, The Leaders Who Overcome Them, and How More Succeed,” again featuring U.S. Soccer staff. Again, I can’t wait to follow tweets from WoSo media here.
Also at 4 p.m.: I’m doing a book signing at Protean Books, not far from the Convention Center
(corrected) 5:15 p.m.: Bo Oshoniyi, one of the great personalities of early MLS, is doing a goalkeeper coaching session.
(corrected) 6 p.m.: Exhibit Hall grand opening. Come see the latest in soccer gadgetry and a bunch of exhibits for leagues, tours and tournaments. Soccer America will be there as well, and if I’m not doing my book signing at this time, I’ll stop by there a couple of times while I’m mingling. You WILL need a credential for this.
FRIDAY
There’s an unfortunate conflict between THREE WoSo sessions:
9:15 a.m.: “Keeping Women in the Youth Game,” with a mix of college and youth coaches
9:15 a.m.: “Journey to the Pros,” NWSLPA Speaker Panel
9:15 a.m.: “Phase 4, We Don’t Care Anymore – Smashing Taboos and Busting Myths with the USWNT,” with English physiologist Georgie Bruinvels.
I hope someone’s lobbying to reschedule one or two of those sessions.
And for us youth soccer nerds:
9:15 a.m.: “Sideline Culture and Why It Matters: The Origins and Solutions to Parent Drama in Youth Soccer“
11 a.m.: “Coaching Players with Disabilities,” with UnSocCo’s Kate Ward and U.S. 7-a-side coach Stuart Sharp. I recently did a story on disability soccer.
A few areas in which the sports community at large is trying to make progress pop up after lunch …
1:30 p.m.: “LGBT And Allies Meeting: Conversations and Connections”
1:30 p.m.: “Ending Abuse Within Sport: How the U.S. Center for SafeSport is Championing Athlete Well-Being.” Soccer hasn’t had anything on the scale of gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar or the multitude of abuses reported in swimming, but the SafeSport database isn’t devoid of soccer coaches.
4:30 p.m.: “Repeat: Jill Ellis and the Road to World Cup 2019.” With someone named … hold on, let me check this … Jill Ellis.
SATURDAY
Now we get back into some technical sessions, along with details of club management, but a few general-interest items are on the agenda:
(moved from Friday) 9 a.m.: “Elite Soccer Clubs and High School Soccer Programs: Working together to build Complete Soccer Players.” Maybe we should band together to drag some Development Academy people into the room.
11 a.m.: “Soccer in an Oasis: Rural vs. Urban,” with Dakota Alliance’s Frank Gurnick
11 a.m.: “FIFA Womens World Cup France 2019: Tournament Observations,” with former U.S. coach April Heinrichs and FIFA’s Patricia Gonzalez
11 a.m.: Laura Harvey usually does multiple coaching sessions, but this is the only one scheduled so far. It’s on attacking against a box midfield.
(corrected) 11 a.m.: “Inclusion Without Power: Black Soccer in America,” with 1996 gold medalist Staci Wilson, surely the most accomplished athlete who graduated from Northern Virginia science-and-math magnet school Thomas Jefferson HS. I hope she’s forgiven me for my misgivings about Crystal Dunn’s 1-on-1 defending.
1:30 p.m.: 1-on-1 with Jill Ellis. Not sure how this differs from Friday’s session.
(corrected) 1:30 p.m.: “Beyond Coaching: Understanding How Current Immigration Policy Affects Players Off the Field,” with attorney Mirella Ceja-Orozco
SUNDAY
Nothing but sessions for coaches finishing up diplomas in 4v4 coaching and goalkeeping. The latter features a full morning and early afternoon with Lisa Cole.
I don’t see anything scheduled with Eric Wynalda, who seems to have soured on getting his message across. Another convention favorite, Emma Hayes, will be tied up coaching Chelsea.
An even deeper dive into U.S. Soccer finances
I went into a rabbit hole and kept digging.
On Dec. 4, The Guardian published my piece on U.S. Soccer and where the money is going. It was essentially a preview of a board meeting that had the potential to shed light on the federation’s five-year plan to spend its assets down to $50m but did not.
I had been working on a spreadsheet rounding up a lot of U.S. Soccer numbers from their public documents — the 990 forms required of nonprofits, Audited Financial Statements, Annual General Meeting reports, etc. I figured I would have it done the day after the piece was published.
I finished it this morning. Dec. 13.
It’s fair to say I have a lot of detail:
- Revenue and expenses in detail from 2011 forward, with some information from 2001-03 and 2006.
- Game-by-game estimates for U.S. national team pay dating back to 2010.
- Attendance and ratings for U.S. national team games
I’ve uploaded all of this to GitHub. If you’d prefer that I make it available some other way, please let me know.
Podcast: The introduction to “Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup: A Historical and Cultural Reality Check”
The podcast returns after a long absence with a brief autobiography to explain how I became a grumpy old man, I mean, how I arrived at the perspective I have.
Then, 15 minutes into the podcast, I give a dramatic reading of the introductory chapter to the new book.
Buy the book from your favorite booksellers:
Women’s soccer: How about equal spending in general, not just equal pay?
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:
- That the USSF data is incorrect and the data associated with the women’s team, such as the dubious “38 percent” claim, is correct.
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
English pay and what it means for U.S. men’s soccer
In yesterday’s Soccer America piece, I tried to give some perspective on the U.S. men’s soccer team’s collective bargaining negotiations (remember: they’re still playing under an expired deal) by taking a look at national team pay in other countries and other sports.
I looked at several examples — English rugby (a considerable amount of money), Indian cricket (also a lot of money), U.S. basketball (little disclosed aside from a new system of paying the women’s players to stay home in the WNBA offseason and go to training camp, though Olympians always have some commercial opportunities if they win).
The one that has drawn some criticism in my inbox is the note that England’s men give their low match fees to charity. The response is that England’s players also receive a substantial percentage of the sponsorship paid to their federation.
The info I received is from a credible source, but details are scarce, and the only mentions of this deal the source passed along are in English tabloids. One of those reports, in The Sun, suggests a split among English players’ unity on the matter. Sky Sports News has a similar report suggesting agents are wary.
I’m surprised I wasn’t pointed to more concrete details. The Times: Players have complained that the money has dropped to “about £150,000 per player.” The Telegraph: “The players’ slice is worth collectively anywhere between £4 million and £6 million annually, paid on a sliding scale according to appearances on behalf of sponsors and their place in the squad.” That’s $5 million to $7.5 million. From my calculations, the U.S. men make a little less than that in a down year of the four-year cycle and more in other years.
If England won the World Cup, The Telegraph reported elsewhere, the players would get a bonus of £5 million. Other countries would get slightly more (Germany), a good bit more (Belgium) or a lot more (Brazil).
So by all available information, if England were to win the World Cup, the bulk of the FIFA prize money of £28 million would go to the federation. But that said, sponsorship money ensures players receive a tidy sum on top of the fortunes they receive from Premier League clubs.
And commercial money makes things interesting. Under their new-ish collective bargaining agreement, the U.S. women have a chance to cash in on licensing rights. (Noteworthy: This all goes through Meghan Klingenberg, who has been out of the national team picture recently.)
Does this mean players have a chance to strike a new deal that isn’t simply about bonuses for friendly wins, draws and losses?
We don’t know. So far, negotiation details are being kept quiet. And the U.S. men are finishing their ninth month with no deal.
Duresport.com 