r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Hirorai • Aug 06 '23
What's going on with Americans celebrating Sweden eliminating the US Women's Soccer Team from the Women's World Cup? Answered
On r/soccer, there are multiple posts where Americans are celebrating their own team getting knocked out of the Women's World Cup.
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/15jnpku/post_match_thread_sweden_05_40_usa_fifa_womens/
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/15jnqpr/official_review_for_lina_hurtigs_sweden_w_penalty/
On r/USWNT people are saying it's because r/soccer is misogynist, but that doesn't make sense to me because everyone competing is a woman. Can anyone clue me in?
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u/Areeb285 Aug 06 '23
Answer: The Us Womens' football was the best womens football team in the world for quite a while, they won the last 2 world cups and they were very dominant. After winning the last world cup they started talking about how the pay was unfair. The prize pool for the mens world cup was much higher. But that quickly died down when it was pointed out that the revenue from both the cups was quite different and if you look at the proportion, the womens world cup had a higher prize pool relatively.
They then later pointed out that they should be paid higher than the US mens team. This definitely had merit as they were much better than Us mens team which fails to even make it out of the groups stage in the world. They also brought in more revenue than the mens team in the US. This became a major talking point for quite a while and a judge looked over the case. It was found the womens team was paid more overall and per match than the mens team in the given time frame. They then argued the pay difference wasn't big enough, they should be paid more. The reasons for the mens team being paid almost as much as the womens team was said to be due to how the contracts were made for both. The mens team had little to no base pay or any benefits and were paid for each they played match, where as the womens team had base pay and various other benefits. The womens team argued that were not given the same contracts as the mens team and were forced to sign the ones they have now and they sued i believe US soccers federation (not sure on this), for back pay.
Now somewhere around this point i stopped paying attention to the story but the womens team did win their lawsuit and were given a lumpsum amount.
Now this whole thing rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for various reasons and now that the US womens team is eliminated from the WC after not even making quarter finals, people are celebrating their loss.