USA Women’s National Team Equal Pay Claim Dismissed

The USA Women’s National Team equal pay claim has been dismissed by a federal judge, while other allegations of discrimination can proceed to trial.

The USWNT’s latest battle has been ongoing since March 2019.

The women’s team had been seeking $66m in damages under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On Friday U.S. District Judge R Gary Klausner threw out the Equal Pay Act allegations in a 32-page document detailing the decision.

“The history of negotiations between the parties demonstrates that the WNT rejected an offer to be paid under the same pay-to-play structure as the MNT, and the WNT was willing to forgo higher bonuses for benefits, such as greater base compensation and the guarantee of a higher number of contracted players. Accordingly, plaintiffs cannot now retroactively deem their CBA (collective bargaining agreement) worse than the MNT CBA by reference to what they would have made had they been paid under the MNT’s pay-to-play terms structure when they themselves rejected such a structure.”

The US women’s players were to earn up to $261,000 each for winning the 2019 World Cup which they did for the fourth time, while the male side could earn up to $1.1m each had they won the 2018 World Cup which they didn’t, they failed to qualify.

The argument was that the US men’s team had a competitive need for chartered flights that the women did not, in order to arrive more rested for their qualifiers.

“This rationale does not fully explain the gross disparity on money spent on airfare and hotels for the teams,” Klausner added.

Megan Rapinoe took to social media to react to the news, writing on Twitter: “We will never stop fighting for EQUALITY.”

“If you know this team at all you know we have a lot of fight left in us. We knew this wasn’t going to be easy, change never is,” Becky Sauerbrunn .