It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything and so thought it a good time to get the writing juices flowing again following the biggest Women’s World Cup in history. So let’s start off with a bit of a contentious claim: ‘Equal Pay’ for the US Women’s National Team isn’t about gender equality at the World Cup. It’s about business. And according to this, the women’s teams don’t deserve the same pay as the men. Yet the US women do.

It’s worth stating off the bat that the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) are not arguing every women’s team should get equal pay, or that prize money at the World Cups should be the same, their lawsuit is fighting for their own equal pay, not anyone else’s. Many of the articles out there right now and the viral posts are saying women should get paid the same as they’re doing the same job. For the rest of the world this is not the case… and yet for the USWNT it is.

But first, a few numbers.

$6 billion: the 2018 men’s World Cup generated over $6 billion in revenue.

$130 million: the 2019 women’s World Cup is estimated to have generated around $130 million.

To expect any tournament organiser to give the same amount of prize money in these two tournaments is obviously not the way forward. In 2018, the men’s teams received around $400 million in prize money (less than 7% of the revenue). In 2019, the women’s teams received $30 million in prize money (over 20% of the revenue generated).

… And Yet The USWNT Do Have A Strong Argument for ‘Equal Pay’

These numbers are also quoted by Megan McArdle in the Washington Post in her argument why ‘equal pay’ is not so clear cut. What is missing from Megan’s analysis, perhaps distracted by her rather bizarre tribute to libertarian Robert Nozick, is who the US Women’s National Team (USWNT) is actually suing and why. The USWNT are not suing FIFA. They are not saying the prize money at the World Cups should be the same for men and women. And so this is not about gender equality in the World Cups. They are saying they should be paid the same as the US men’s national team. Unfortunately this is missed in other news outlets, who end up essentially mansplaining the problem, because they didn’t look at the actual argument, such as this article from Forbes’ Mike Ozanian.

Hopefully where this article avoids mansplaining the issue is because we can look at the USWNT’s actual argument. The USWNT are suing their own Football Association, the US Soccer Federation (USSF). The US women’s team are looking for ‘equal pay’ with the US men’s team not from FIFA but from their Federation. The reason? The National Teams are not paid by FIFA directly. FIFA pay the National Federation based on the prize money they earn and the Federations decide how much to pay their teams (usually agreed in advance based on how far they progress in a tournament).

The USWNT brought in just over $50 million in prize money to the USSF in the last three years. The US men’s team by comparison brought in just under $50 million. Despite the fact that prize money differs so greatly between the men’s and women’s tournaments, the US women’s team still out-earned the men in those three years. And at the time of the filing of the lawsuit, the women’s team were apparently earning just a quarter of what the men did. Why? Now that is an issue for gender equality.

This is also why no other country is really generating the news around ‘equal pay’ from the World Cup. This is a uniquely American issue. And there are a few caveats: the US men’s team hosted the Copa America which generated about $50 million in revenue for the federation. They also command a much higher fee for friendlies and other international games. The US women’s team out-earned the men’s team in prize money, though not in other revenues. This is well noted in Caitlin Murray’s article with the LA Times. As she writes, the men’s team did essentially bring in more money but only because the global infrastructure allows that, not because of anything based on meritocracy.

Equality of Outcome v Equality of Opportunity

Equal pay for equal work is a good slogan and in general life it makes sense. However the World Cup is a competition. World Cup winners earn far more than the team they beat in the final, and no-one is arguing that the Dutch players should earn the same as the Americans just because they did the same job. The US women rightly earn more by beating the Netherlands. Their results were better so they were paid more.

And with meritocracy in mind, it’s worth noting that no-one is arguing the women’s team are better than the men’s team. The USWNT lost to FC Dallas’ U15 boys team back in 2017, for example. There are caveats to that well explained here (it was a very informal scrimmage and so on) but if the US men’s team played the US women’s team they would thrash them no question. Winning the women’s World Cup is not the same thing as winning the men’s World Cup. There is a clear difference in talent.

This is why arguing for equality of outcome, as in ‘equal pay’ on the principle of equal pay alone, does not make sense here. We cannot expect two salespeople to be paid the same just because they are doing the same job in theory. If one salesperson makes 1,000 sales they should obviously be paid more than a second salesperson who makes 100 sales. Whether the first is a man and the second is a women, or vice versa, is irrelevant. If two salespeople make a similar amount of sales, all other things being equal, they should roughly be paid equally.

This is also why players on the very same team are all paid differently based on how good the coaches think they are and how many sales of shirts and other merchandise they bring in. It’s not a perfect system but generally the best talents are getting paid more based on how much value they bring to the team. Equal pay would demand every player on a team is paid the same. It makes no sense for Lionel Messi and the Barcelona’s third-string goalkeeper to be paid the same however. Likewise, the men’s and women’s teams should not have equal pay regardless of how much revenue they are generating.

And this is why the USWNT’s issue of ‘equal pay’ in football is not really one for gender equality in general. The USWNT are not arguing every women’s team should have equal pay – only them, and only equal to the US men’s national team. Because they brought in more money than the men. And that’s a fair argument. Their argument acknowledges that if they brought in much less money than the men’s team they should be paid less. If they bring in way more money than the men’s team, they should be paid way more. All of that is fair. Looking at the revenues, the US men out-earned the women by a big degree (often four times more) before 2015. A large discrepancy in pay in those years makes sense. However in 2016, 2017, and 2018 revenues were roughly equal. So the pay for those years should be roughly equal. The actual pay is hard to fine online (if anyone has a list of how much the men and women received each year, please do let me know).

What Should We Be Fighting For?

Like most social injustices, gender inequality is hardest to solve after the fact. One of the best ways to see what we should be fighting for here in the footballing world is understanding why the US Women’s National Team is so good compared to other women’s teams. The first Women’s World Cup was back in 1991. The USA won. Since then they have never finished lower than third. They are undoubtedly the best team in women’s footballing history. Why?

There are several factors for this and a major one is Title IX. Title IX was an anti-discrimination law in the United States which made it illegal for educational institutions receiving money from the government to discriminate based on sex. There’s a good summary of that by CNN here. In 1971, the year before the law was signed into effect, there were apparently just 700 high school female footballers. 20 years later there were 121,722 female High School players and the US won the first Women’s World Cup. Of that World Cup winning squad, the oldest players were 27 years old. They would have been nine years old when Title IX came into effect.

Implementation of Title IX was not perfect, many schools fought against it even, but it often meant young girls could play in organised team sports with facilities just as good as the boys. While imperfect, this spoke to equality of opportunity and those who did that best became the hotbeds for talent. And it was also leagues ahead of countries like England, Brazil, and Germany who actively banned women from playing football around this time.

There’s a very good video summarising this embedded below.

And this is where the fight for gender equality can use the US’ experience. Demanding equal pay is demanding equality of outcome. The problem in football generally is that equality of outcome is not deserved. The USWNT probably deserve equal pay (or something close to it) but practically no other women’s team does. They may be playing the same sport, but against very different opponents and generating far different revenues. No other country can demand ‘equal pay’ in this way.

What the US women’s team are also demanding, however, is equality of opportunity. And by looking at why the USA is better than the traditional powerhouses of football shows a way forward for everyone else. Their laws created a more equal opportunity from the beginning. This is a great time to demand equality of opportunity from the Football Federations around the world to replicate Title IX and similar laws that make it illegal to discriminate based on gender. If the boys’ football team at your Primary or High School get a fancy new football field, then the women should too (or share it equitably).

There are likewise many caveats to this too. The US focus on school-based athletics meant that equality of opportunity in schools translated into equality more generally. The club-based system in most of the world presents more challenges. But by focusing on equality of opportunity, we can ensure young boys and girls around the world have the opportunity to play sport and build up the entire football pyramid. And as we see each World Cup cycle, the pay gap is closing.

Fighting for equality of outcome often makes little sense in the real world. However equality of opportunity offers us a very real way forward. And in that respect, good luck to the USWNT.

We can also see this in our smaller experience here in Payatas. As I’ve told many of our visitors when they ask about the large number of girls playing, if we started a basketball team we would have almost only boys showing up. If we started a volleyball team, almost all girls. Because we started a football team, the reaction was more ‘what’s this?’ given the Philippines is a basketball country. One of the mothers said to her daughter that girls shouldn’t play football. Her daughter pointed to the many other girls playing and she kept on playing. She’s on the National Youth Team now. Likewise, the gender balance of our youth coaches and referees are 50/50. The fact that football wasn’t so well known in Payatas gave us this advantage – the gender norms of football elsewhere just didn’t apply here.

In that respect the best way to solve gender equality in football is equality of opportunity. The USWNT’s example isn’t about making sure the best women get paid the same. It’s showing the possibilities when we provide equality of opportunity for kids. The USA, where football isn’t even the number one sport, has the best women’s team in the world because of it. Everyone else is playing catch up.