The World Cup and its resulting championship glow had been part of an uneasy truce between the team and the federation, one that held as the players were feted by fans and politicians and hailed in media interviews and talk-show appearances. But the issue never lingered far from the stage; the women heard chants of “Equal pay!” even before they received their winner’s medals at the World Cup, and officials like Cordeiro were heckled by the same mantra during the team’s ticker-tape celebrations in New York.

Cordeiro said U.S. Soccer had made “a deliberate decision” not to debate the facts of the lawsuit or the broader equal pay fight while the women’s team was preparing to defend its world championship, but his letter seemed to be an acknowledgment that recent events — including pressure from corporations and at least one U.S. Soccer sponsor, as well as efforts in Congress that could imperil funding to prepare for the 2026 World Cup to be held in North America — had forced the federation to engage.

It was unclear how Cordeiro’s letter would be received by the players themselves. Early indications were that it was not going over well: a statement from a spokeswoman for the women’s team players labeled the conclusions in Cordeiro’s letter “utterly false” and the release of it “a ruse” to change a conversation the federation was losing in the public square.

And even as he heaped praise on the players who have argued publicly and loudly for better treatment — Cordeiro called the World Cup winners “an inspiration to us all and truly some of the greatest athletes that our nation has ever produced” — he also raised familiar arguments about why their pay was different. He said it was difficult to compare the pay of the men’s and women’s national teams because of differing compensation structures; that a vast divide in FIFA prize money for men and women skews any comparison of compensation; and that the women’s team has produced per-game revenues that were, on average over 10 years, half of those generated by the men’s national team.