USMNT Rips U.S. Soccer's "False Accounting" And Odd Claims About Equal Pay

Last night, U.S. Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro dropped a letter and accompanying fact sheet supporting a claim that his federation invests more heavily in women’s soccer than men’s. Immediately afterwards, the USWNT called bullshit on Cordeiro’s selective numbers and creative accounting, and today the USMNT player’s association has followed suit, issuing a strong statement in support of the USWNT.

“This is more of the same from a Federation that is constantly in disputes and litigation and focuses on increasing revenue and profits without any idea how to use that money to grow the sport,” the USMNT’s statement said. “One way to increase profit unfairly is to refuse to pay national team members a fair share of the revenue they generate.” Here’s the player association’s full statement:

That last paragraph is crucial, as the USMNT is also gearing up to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Soccer. The most recent CBA expired at the end of 2018, and though players on the men’s team do receive more game pay than their World Cup-winning counterparts, U.S. Soccer’s organizational disarray and intentionally opaque economics are also their problem. The two teams have different unions, but both parties seem to want to get paid the same, which is only fair on the grounds of both revenue generation and gender equality.