Female footballers in the United States of America are furious at a judgement of a court that dismissed their bid for equal pay with their male counterparts.
The US women soccer team are the most successful female football team in the world. The team has won everything their male counterparts can only dream about.
They won the Women’s World Cup last summer making it their fourth world title. They have also won five Olympic gold medals, a feat no women soccer team has been able to match.
In 2019, after the Women’s World Cup, a group of 28 US female national team footballers dragged US Soccer Federation (USSF) to court demanding for equal pay in line with the Equal Pay Act in the country.
The Equal Pay Act stipulates that male and female doing the same nature of jobs and under the same class should be paid and treated equally.
Contrary to the provisions of the act, the female footballers say they USSF treated them unfairly in terms of travel arrangements, housing and medical support.
Since the women believe that they are being cheated, they are demanding that the court should order the USSF to pay them damages worth $66 million.
Unfortunately for the World Cup-winning team, the court strikes out the lawsuit saying that the women cumulatively earn more than their male counterparts.
“The women’s team has been paid more on both a cumulative and an average per-game basis than the men’s team over the class period”, the presiding Federal judge Gary Klausner ruled.
The America team is shocked
The judgement has been allowed to go to trial, which is set for 16 June in Los Angeles and the female footballers have vowed to continue the fight.
“We are shocked and disappointed,” Molly Levinson, the players’ spokeswoman, said after the judgment. “We will not give up our hard work for equal pay.
“We are confident in our case and steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that girls and women who play this sport will not be valued as lesser just because of their gender.”
Though the USSF said in a statement that the soccer governing body in America is working on a way to settle the differences between the federation and the women team, the women footballers are determined to settle the differences in court.
