Carli Lloyd Explains Reasoning for Wage-Discrimination Complaint vs. US Soccer

The United States women's national soccer team is contemplating a boycott of the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro if there is no balance in pay between the men's and women's national teams.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, U.S. captain Carli Lloyd said she believes she and her teammates are being treated like "second-class citizens," and it's time for a change:

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We've won three World Cups and will try to win our fifth Olympic gold medal this summer in Brazil. When we captured the Women's World Cup title in Canada in July, we drew the highest American television rating for soccer in history and, according to a financial report published by U.S. Soccer last month, helped generate $17.7 million in profit for the federation.

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. 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.

We've gotten nowhere negotiating with our federation for years, and it became clear to us that nothing had changed. That's why we went to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with our complaint.

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Top players on the national team filed a wage-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on March 31. Along with Lloyd, stars Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Becky Sauerbrunn are among those who are looking for an increase in pay.

Sauerbrunn told espnW if no changes were made in terms of compensation, the women would seriously consider a boycott of this year's games in Rio and not defend their gold medal.

Lloyd mentioned the U.S. Soccer Federation has done its part to help with the National Women's Soccer League, but the gap between the men's and women's salaries for international play is still wide:

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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.

The men get almost $69,000 for making a World Cup roster. As women, we get $15,000 for making the World Cup team.

I understand that the men's World Cup generates vastly more money globally than the women's event, but the simple truth is that U.S. Soccer projects that our team will generate a profit of $5.2 million in 2017 while the men are forecast to lose almost $1 million. Yet we get shortchanged coming and going.

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Lloyd also said the players have no issues with the men on the team; rather, their issues lie with the institution as a whole for not treating women fairly. She also noted the discrimination in women's sports happens everywhere, not just soccer.

"When I first made the national team, there were no salaries and no health benefits, so yes, we've made some progress," Lloyd said. "But we're nowhere near where we should be."

The USWNT has proved to be the best women's soccer team in the world over the last five years, and the accolades speak for themselves. A boycott of the Olympics would hinder the overall appeal and superstar power in women's soccer. It could also be a wake-up call for the U.S. Soccer Federation to try to accommodate its women in a more respectable manner.

"We are not backing down anymore," Lloyd said.