USSF Asks U.S. Men's, Women's Soccer Teams to Split World Cup Prize Money Equally

U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone published an open letter Friday asking women's and men's national teams to split World Cup prize money equally.

Meg Linehan of The Athletic posted the full text of Parlow Cone's letter on Twitter:

"To that end, we have invited the players and both Players Associations to join U.S. Soccer in negotiating a solution together that equalizes World Cup prize money between the USMNT and USWNT," Parlow Cone wrote.

While the women's team has been arguing for equal pay, the federation has claimed that it is out of its control to provide equal prize money to the men's and women's teams because FIFA controls the World Cup prize pot, per Kathleen McNamee of ESPN.

The USSF and USWNT have been at odds over the pay discrepancy between the men's and women's teams.

The USWNT sued the USSF for discrimination in 2019, per ESPN News Services, with their lawsuit reading in part:

"Despite the fact that these female and male players are called upon to perform the same job responsibilities on their teams and participate in international competitions for their single common employer, the USSF, the female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts."

"This is true even though their performance has been superior to that of the male players—with the female players, in contrast to male players, becoming world champions."

The battle between the two sides has persisted ever since. The equal pay lawsuit is ongoing as the players appeal a federal judge's May 2020 decision to dismiss the suit.

Linehan wrote about the USSF's goal with the letter for The Athletic.

"It's two-fold from Parlow Cone: trying to add some public pressure for the federation's side in the equal pay battle (optics has always been the largest front between the players and U.S. Soccer), and for that pressure to specifically be applied to the two players' associations to sit down for negotiations at the same time."

"Parlow Cone told The New York Times that new CBAs for either team would be on hold because of this: “As U.S. Soccer, I don’t think we’re willing to sign a CBA that doesn’t equalize World Cup prize money."

Becca Roux, the USWNT Players Association executive director responded to the open letter. She called it a "publicity stunt" that "fell short of of addressing our issues," per Andrew Das of The New York Times:

The United States women's national team most recently earned a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. The U.S. has also made each of the last three World Cup finals, winning back-to-back titles in 2015 and 2019.