What U.S. Soccer's Lawsuit Against the Women's National Team Is Really About

In a rather dramatic escalation of the collective bargaining agreement talks that had been ongoing between the two sides, U.S. Soccer filed suit against the Women's National Team Players Association in a federal court in Chicago on Wednesday.

But their disagreement isn't such a simple matter of just gender discrimination, as it's been widely portrayed.

On the surface, the filing centers on a significant difference of opinion over whether the federation and its senior women's national team currently have an actual CBA or not. The last undisputed CBA expired at the end of 2012. The following March, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding that essentially prolonged the existing CBA through 2016, with a few amendments, or so U.S. Soccer claims. The Players Association, through their Executive Director Richard Nichols, counters that the MOU isn't a formal CBA but merely a set of conditions to frame their working relationship with the USSF, and that it can be canceled with 60 days' notice.

When Nichols wouldn't sign away the players' right to strike in a meeting on Wednesday, U.S. Soccer immediately moved forward with its lawsuit. With the Olympics just six months away, and qualifiers kicking off in Texas next week, the players command about as much leverage as they'll ever have. There would be no strike before or during qualifiers, since they end on February 21, but if their CBA is indeed invalid, they would have the right to strike during the Olympics, which would have enormous repercussions for U.S. Soccer. The old CBA bans strikes and lockouts, which is why the question of whether it's still fully in effect is so important.

But what, exactly, are they really fighting over? Why the sudden talk of strikes in the wake of a third World Cup title and an unprecedented crest of popularity—and on the eve of the next anticipated triumph in Rio, no less?

Nichols, who took over from previous player executive director John Langel in late 2014, has taken a hardline stance asserting that the women are treated unequally in comparison to the senior men's national team. Some of the women's complaints are that the men receive far higher bonuses for World Cup performances and mostly fly business class or charter, whereas a lot of the women's flights are in economy class. Most of all, they are upset that the bulk of their games arranged by U.S. Soccer are still on artificial surfaces.

"They've had to endure second-class citizenship under the offices of US Soccer for many years," Nichols told the Guardian before this week's events. "They've suffered injuries from playing on turf all these years. They've sucked it up and said: 'We're gonna do it for the good of the cause.' But there comes a time when you can't take it any more."

(Nichols, Langel, and a senior women's national team member who serves as a player representative didn't return requests for comment from VICE Sports.)

The latter complaint is fair enough. Eight of the 10 post-World Cup games in the Victory Tour were staged on artificial turf, and one surface in Hawaii was in such poor condition that the team refused to play on it. The December game was canceled one day after star midfielder Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL in practice. The men's team hasn't played on artificial turf in a decade—temporary grass is laid over artificial turf when necessary.

U.S. Soccer has publicly acknowledged its error in Hawaii through its president, Sunil Gulati, who admitted the federation had "screwed up." The federation said it will strive for better surfaces.

But the other complaints—the bonuses and the flights—rest on something of a false equivalency. This is the crux of the case. While it's true that the women do get much lower bonuses and tend to fly in a lower class, claiming gender discrimination is an oversimplification.

The men do indeed get bigger bonuses, but unlike the women, they don't draw a full-time salary from U.S. Soccer. The women's national team players are compensated as federation employees, an arrangement replete with benefits. At any given time, at least female 24 players are salaried in a tier system, paying them a base of $122,000, $101,000, or $86,000, depending on what level they are arranged into, per information released in the filing. (At least 18 players must be tier 1 at all times, and all Women's World Cup roster players are tier 1 for that year and the next.)

USWNT players are paid this flat sum—which combines both their national team salary and their federation-funded National Women's Soccer League pay—whether they are called onto the team and make it onto the field or not, so long as they retain their tier designation. Heather O'Reilly, for instance, was cut from the Olympic qualifying team but will remain a tier 1 player for 2016. And these figures don't include performance bonuses, ticket revenue sharing (which is equal to the men's), sponsorship appearances, or marketing and image compensation.

The men, on the other hand, are paid entirely in bonuses, which are larger. The women each get $75,000 for winning the World Cup or the Olympics, plus their share of the FIFA prize money, whereas the men got a multiple of that just for reaching the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup. The men are only paid if they are called up, make appearances, and win games.

This means that, in reality, the earnings are much more equitable than they seem by merely laying bonuses side by side. According to a 2014 tax filing, Clint Dempsey, Geoff Cameron, Jozy Altidore, Tim Howard, and Jermaine Jones each made around $400,000. That's more than any woman, but that was in a World Cup year.

In the last Olympic year, 2012, Christie Rampone, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Alex Morgan were the top women earners at $275,000—more than any man that year. Incomes for 2015 haven't been made public yet, but one person familiar with the numbers estimates that the majority of the Women's World Cup squad will have cleared over $300,000, buttressed in part by the $1.8 million cumulative Victory Tour bonus, which is augmented by a cut of gate receipts. Certainly, that's still less than many men got in a World Cup year, but the women's earnings are more constant over the four-year cycle and less dependent on performance. The men, on the other hand, have a bumper year every four years, with much lower figures at other times and nothing at all if they're not called in.

As for the flights, they, too, require some context to fully understand. There is no disputing that the men have better travel conditions set out in their CBA, but they also tend to travel further. Historically and presently, a large part of the men's national team plays its club soccer in Europe, whereas the women are almost all employed stateside. That's why for their longer flights, men tend to fly in business class—although not always. For longer team trips, planes are often chartered.

The women are usually restricted to premium economy seats, with extra legroom, but also tend to fly shorter distances. From U.S. Soccer's standpoint, this is a matter of enabling performance. And the women's (disputed) CBA does lay out that players will use business class or a charter for Women's World Cup games and qualifiers that require more than three hours of flying. According to the source, the federation feels like it's been generous with upgrading the women when it has deemed it beneficial to their performance, even when the CBA doesn't require it.

On some level, this dispute boils down to an old argument about whether women's sports merit the same funding as men's for the sake of equality, even if the economics don't support it. Most observers would agree that U.S. Soccer has always supported the women's team in a fashion unrivaled by any other national or international federation, and that's to say nothing of its bankrolling the NWSL since 2013 to give its players a league in which to compete.

"U.S. Soccer is the recognized world leader for the advancement of women's soccer and is actively engaged in improving the opportunities for young girls playing soccer across the country," the federation said in a statement. "We recognize the tremendous value that the Women's National Team brings to the game of soccer, and we look forward to continuing our work with the players to address their concerns and continuing to help improve the game in the future."

After decades of heavy investment, U.S. Soccer admits to finally making money from its women's program. And they appear willing to share the spoils in a new CBA by continuing to negotiate in good faith. Where the two sides differ isn't so much on whether they'll draw up an improved CBA, with better compensation for the players, but when it will take effect.

The timing obviously matters. The women have leverage because of that threat to strike prior to the Olympics, which would be embarrassing for the federation and could possibly put them in a bad position with FIFA should the team have to withdraw. If things indeed drag into the fall or winter, with no major women's tournament scheduled until the 2019 Women's World Cup, it will be harder for the players to get the deal they want.

In the meantime, the optics of this standoff don't favor the federation, which is seen to be suing its beloved champions. But this case is more convoluted than it appears.