U.S. Soccer broke new ground with Wednesday’s announcement of collective bargaining agreements (CBA) guaranteeing equal pay and split World Cup bonuses for its women’s and men’s national teams, and now the federation is calling on the rest of the world to follow their lead.
The new U.S. Soccer CBA’s groundbreaking shift is to equalize what players get from both of those pools, meaning that both national teams will receive a share of the USMNT’s prize money from Qatar 2022, and (assuming they qualify later this summer) from the USWNT’s financial reward from Australia/New Zealand 2023.
Speaking to reporters following the announcement of the deal, U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone said that she would like to see other national federations institute a similar structure, and called on FIFA to award equal prize money for both the women’s and men’s World Cups.
“I’ve had many conversations with CONCACAF and FIFA, with Gianni (Infantino), Victor (Montagliani, the head of CONCACAF) on this very topic, and they’re open to it, and I think we have willing partners there,” said Parlow Cone. “Things just don’t move as fast as we would like them to move, but I think that is the next step: for other federations around the world to look to see what we have done, and start doing it themselves. And then also, encouraging the confederations as well as FIFA to equalize all prize money.”
Soon after the 2019 women’s World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino pledged to boost that tournament’s prize total to $60 million, but the gap between the prize money pools remains enormous. The 2022 men’s World Cup will see $440 million in bonuses paid out to participating teams.
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