Hope Solo to object to U.S. Soccer equal pay deal
Former national team star Hope Solo is fighting to ensure equal pay for all U.S. men’s national team players.
Solo, who won the 2010 FIFA Women’s World Cup in South Africa with the U.S., is the first woman to play professional soccer in the United States. She joined a group of more than 30 current and former national team players who are participating in a national organizing conference this week.
U.S. Soccer made sweeping changes to the national team pay structure in 2001 that left some players, like Solo, $5,000 to $6,000 less than their counterparts on the same team. Solo played with the U.S. in the 2016 Summer Olympics and she was an alternate to the U.S. World Cup team in 2015. She was cut from the World Cup team in 2016 after she and other players said they had not received their 2010 World Cup bonuses. After the federation agreed to pay the players, Solo filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Former U.S. national team players suing U.S. Soccer
“The U.S. Soccer Federation has a responsibility to provide its players with a work environment that is free from sexual harassment and creates an environment where its players can fully develop their individual strengths and talents, in the most open, challenging, and rewarding manner possible,” Solo wrote in a 2015 complaint to the government agency. “In contrast, the U.S. Soccer Federation has decided to pay the men for playing professional soccer in an environment where they are subjected to sexual harassment and exploitation.”
The federation has previously argued it has the right to set its own pay guidelines, even if they are challenged in court. Solo’s legal team argues U.S Soccer has not proven the discrimination against women exists in the workplace and that
