The U.S. soccer women’s national team had nothing to do with the U.S. men’s national team’s success in the World Cup it was eliminated by Belgium. Never mind though: because the men and U.S. Soccer allowed themselves to be bullied by woke-think and self-righteous women like Megan Rapinoe into an equal pay deal, the money–$16 million—the men earned will be split 50-50 with the women. Or as one wag put it: the men earned the money while the women stayed home. The news media has called the arrangement “ground-breaking.” It’s ground-breaking, all right. So would an agreement that required the men to clean Megan’s house with a toothbrush.
I should state up front that I could not care less what the men do with their prize money, and if they made a deal to give half of it to homeless puppies or the Obama library, that would be fine with me. However, this does represent a distortion of “equal pay” and one more high profile (well, for those who pay attention to soccer anyway) slide down socialism/communism’s slippery slope.
U.S. Soccer keeps 20% of the prize money, with the remaining 80 % is to be split evenly between the men’s and women’s player pools. That comes out to roughly $246,153 per player. Now, if we want to rationalize this crummy deal for the men, it could be described as a team unity, one for all and all for one device. That’s not what’s really going on, however. When the woman play in 2027, they will earn much less prize money than the men did no matter how well they do. The USMNT earned $13 million for reaching the round of 16 at the 2022 World Cup. The USWNT earned just $1.87 million for reaching the same stage at the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Unfair? That contrast in rewards reflects a difference in talent and ability. In a meritocracy, which is what the United States is fighting to remain after 250 years of success with that motivation to excel, it is absolutely fair that the men earn more. A good men’s college soccer team would beat that U.S. woman, and the men play a faster, better, more entertaining version of the game. The Left’s version of fairness, however, is based on sharing benefits with the collective regardless of who did the most to earn them.
The men, weenies all, let themselves be pressured into the prize-sharing surrender in 2022, when blind DEI was ascendant and the Biden Administration along with the rest of the Axis of Unethical Conduct were twisting logic, ethics and fairness into metaphorical pretzels. We are now at the cross-roads of what “fairness” is. Does it mean to each according to his or her needs, and from each according to his or her ability?
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Most of the time your typos dont bthor me because I type on a phone keypad which is notorious for getting everything wrong.
However, you wrote
I think you meant “A good boys U15 soccer team…” like in 2017.
If the women truly believe in sharing equally, they will further split their share among all of their support staff – not just coaches, but also receptionists, secretaries, janitorial staff and everyone working to make sure the women can get out there and play their best.
Which is how baseball teams split up World Series shares.
Ironic that most countries don’t give a rat’s ass about their women’s soccer teams. It’s the reason the U.S. women’s team is so dominant. Title IX forces colleges into underwriting massive women’s sports teams to balance out their football and basketball and baseball programs to meet Title IX requirements of proportional participation in sports programs. I read that the University of Alabama has over one hundred women on scholarship for their rowing team. Hah! Come to think of it, a friend’s daughter went to Ohio State on a rowing scholarship. What a surprise! Whoever set up this sharing formula deserves a big Nelson.
American soccer will never catch up to the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, all the best athletes play soccer right out of the crib. In the U.S., soccer gets a few oddball players. All the best athletes go into football, basketball or baseball because that’s where the money is and those are the games kids play in the U.S. Young players in the rest of the world are literally steeped in soccer from the crib.
When we were in Holland, we went out to a pizza restaurant one night and watched kids playing a pickup game of street soccer on the square outside the restaurant. Later in the dinner, one of the kids walked in and out of the restaurant, dribbling the soccer ball. No one even noticed. Until we see that in the U.S., the U.S. will NEVER be competitive in soccer, no matter how many left over players are picked up from foreign born guys who happen to be eligible under the goofy rules.
Is the U.S. Soccer “Equal Pay” deal fair, responsible and ethical?
Is it fair? No, because it is never fair for someone just to be given money for nothing in hopes of shutting up the women’s rights harpies.
Is it responsible? Well, since it is unfair, it is most unlikely to be responsible on that basis alone. But if we just leave that aside, how is it anything but outright theft of the earnings of the men to placate moronic leftist has-beens like Megan Rapinoe?
Is it ethical? Since it is neither fair nor responsible, it’s hard to see how it is ethical since both fairness and responsibility are core ethical values. Furthermore, how is US Soccer trustworthy when they cave in to such transparently political nonsense as the idea that the women deserve half of the men’s pay for work they had nothing to do with. It would’ve been much more ethical of US Soccer if it just told the women to pound sand.
It’s like having 90% of the costs of a marriage with none of the benefits. Such arrangements are almost never ethical.
No. If you want equality, you get paid less when you bring in less revenue.