Carli Lloyd and the rest of the members of the World Cup-winning U.S. Women's national soccer team have had enough. Despite their winning ways, Lloyd and her teammates suffer from a broken system that has for too long compensated their male counterparts to a far greater degree, despite a failure to reach the same level of success as the women's team.
Lloyd, one of the five USWNT members to file a wage discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation last week, addressed the pay disparity and the women's choice to pursue legal action in an op-ed published in the New York Times Monday.
"Simply put, we're sick of being treated like second-class citizens," Lloyd wrote. "It wears on you after a while. And we are done with it."
Lloyd has been a part of U.S. soccer for more than a decade now. During that time, she's helped secure two Olympic gold medals as well as the 2015 Women's World Cup.
But despite that success, she and her teammates make far less money than the men's team, which is currently fighting to remain relevant for the 2018 World Cup and hasn't come close to touching the same kind of success Lloyd and her teammates, as well as the previous generation of women's national team players, have managed.
It's this disparity in achievement and the resulting ratings and advertisement dollars the USSF enjoys that Lloyd points to while lamenting the lack of fair compensation for the women's squad.
"Yet even though U.S. Soccer's financials confirm that we are the driving force that generates a majority of the revenue for the federation, when we as a team presented our proposal for increased compensation in our new collective bargaining agreement, U.S. Soccer told us, on more than one occasion, that our proposal was not rational," Lloyd wrote. "Essentially, the federation said that it had a certain sum of money set aside for the women's team and that our proposal was unacceptable."
Lloyd allows that the USSF has shown support for the National Women's Soccer League - player salaries are subsidized at about $54,000 per player - but bemoans the gap between what the men's national team players earn, and the women's.
"If I were a male soccer player who won a World Cup for the United States, my bonus would be $390,000. Because I am a female soccer player, the bonus I got for our World Cup victory last summer was $75,000," writes Lloyd. "The men get almost $69,000 for making a World Cup roster. As women, we get $15,000 for making the World Cup team."
This isn't the first time a women's national team has lashed out against their governing body in an effort to increase their pay - the Australian women's team went on strike last year seeking a wage upgrade - and it surely won't be the last.
Many will likely struggle to muster empathy for the women's national team - yet another highly-paid professional athlete complaining about their paycheck.
But Lloyd and the rest of the women's national team are simply seeking equal pay to that of the men's team. And it sure sounds like they won't be giving in on their demands any time soon.
"If I've learned anything in my career, it's that nothing worthwhile in life comes easy," Lloyd wrote. "That's just the way it is. This isn't about a money grab. It's about doing the right thing, the fair thing. It's about treating people the way they deserve to be treated, no matter their gender."
