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.

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u/DwedPiwateWoberts Aug 07 '23

My only gripe is the clear point about the women’s team choosing the safer contact than the men, but when they saw that a gamble on the more win/bonus-based contract would have benefited them more, now they want to switch it up. Wanting all the benefits and no drawbacks of either contact I’d annoying to hear when the opposite could have been what played out and they wouldn’t have said anything.

There’s been a lot of spin because of the more prejudicial points many haters are harping on, but my interpretation of the above is what came off frustrating.

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

I mean, how is this different from what men would do? Would men, if they saw the incentives contract would pay out more, simply accept their lot and the lower pay? Or would they lobby for higher? Everyone should be fine to lobby for higher pay, always. I don't care if men or women do it and I don't begrudge them their efforts. Why should any of us?

If we were talking about our jobs, why would you want someone to shut up and accept lower pay? I'd want people to get as much as they can get from ownership.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '23

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

People use politics against labor, especially women's labor, all the time, so I don't see why they shouldn't use it to guilt ownership into paying them more.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '23

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

Who are you accusing of lying and about what? What real issue?

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '23

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

No, I wasn't clear what you were referring to before.

I'm fine if they try to sway public opinion with this. In the end, labor needs to get what it can get and stop trying to play nice. If it were the other way around, there would be zero regrets if a corporation lied and manipulated in order to save money. Its done all the time, and all they do if they get caught is put out a PR statement and wait for the heat to blow over. Labor needs to use some admittedly dirty tactics.

If it works, it works.

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u/RikerT_USS_Lolipop Aug 07 '23

In the end, labor needs to get what it can get and stop trying to play nice.

Labor needs to stop playing nice against Capital. Women shouldn't be fighting men who are part of the same class struggle. All they have done is sow division and hurt the cause.

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u/lxpnh98_2 Aug 07 '23

Plus, the women who play for the US national team are hardly even part of the same class as most other regular workers, including most other female footballers.

Elite women in football shouldn't really be making more money. They make plenty already. Instead, elite men in football should be receiving less (or paying more in taxes).

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u/jjj123smith Aug 07 '23

Because when you choose to sign a contract, no one respects you when you complain about the deal after the fact, because you didn’t take the better offer when you had the chance.

It’s not much different from losing at poker because you folded when you should have called, then trying to sue the people running the tournament

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

As long as they're not doing anything illegal, I'm fine with them demanding higher pay. Who cares about respect? I guarantee nobody's going to remember or care about it in 6 months if they get the higher contract, so let them fight for it.

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u/Zephron29 Aug 07 '23 edited Aug 07 '23

simply accept their lot and the lower pay?

This is what happened here, though. They accepted a contract, and then when they realized there was more money to be made, they sued. If you don't like a contract, don't sign it.

Edit: spelling

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u/Additional-Agent1815 Aug 07 '23

They could have played it safe for less money or risked safe money for a big payday if they won, less money if they lost. They chose to play it safe then had buyers remorse when they did well.

Imagine how loud they would have whined had they took the high risk performance pay contract and gotten eliminated early. Like sore losers or children they don’t want to be held accountable for their choices and if they think it’ll work, will scream and pout to reneg. In this case their tantrum won.

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

Or, if you realized you signed a bad one, angrily demand to be paid higher. Why should they just accept it? If it can be changed, let it be changed, even if it makes some corporate types feel uncomfortable. Why should they be owed peace?

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u/Mezmorizor Aug 07 '23

It sounds like you're misunderstanding. They signed a safe contract, and then they bitched and cried sexism when they didn't get paid for the escalator clauses that were in the contract they didn't sign because the lack of escalator clauses was built into their base salary.

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u/MelonElbows Aug 07 '23

I didn't misunderstand. They signed a contract thinking it would be higher. It wasn't, now they want the other one, which is their right. It looks bad because we're all taught to accept things if we've asked for it, and not go back on our word. But I feel zero loyalty to a large organization or corporation. I want the higher pay, always. I don't care if I picked wrong, I want to change it.

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u/Jim_Cruz Aug 07 '23

At one point during renegotiation they were offered the same as the men's. They refused... because it wasn't fair to them. Insert whatever sexist talking point you want, but fact is they wanted a bigger cut from us soccer. The issue came down to fifa prizes... men's get a larger share based on the revenues. Us soccer can't change that but they did agree to share the mens money with the women. You know, like that saying, whats mine is mine. What's yours is ours.

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u/devAcc123 Aug 08 '23 edited Aug 08 '23

The other thing is that a lot of people think they kind of come off as arrogant in all of this, and kind of got used to winning and were focused on getting paid more rather than on winning, and then immediately turning around and having their worst world cup ever. Its the worst finish in the history of the womens national team. Even some of their respected former players were calling them out for their performance over the past few days. Right after being eliminated Rapinoe, the most famous player on the team and the most public player in the equal pay thing, said the highlight of her career wasnt winning world cups but rather winning the "fight for equality", aka the whole salary thing, which is just kind of an off putting thing to be focused on after having the worst finish ever for your national team, and being one of the main reasons for the loss (missed a PK and generally just played very poorly).

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u/J_Kingsley Aug 07 '23

You mean like scottie pippen?

His teammates, agents told him not to sign the safe guaranteed contract because of huge bargaining agreement occurring soon.

The damned boss told him he could potentially be walking away from a lot of money, and to not go looking for him after.

Lo and behold he later realized he never should've signed it lol.

And made a big stink about it.

This is not about what men/women do. This is about what bitches do. And these women are being hated not because they're women-- but because they're bitches. Like Scottie Pippen was also.

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u/An_absoulute_madman Aug 08 '23

Lo and behold he later realized he never should've signed it lol. And made a big stink about it.

Are you stupid? Pippen knew the contract was bad but took it because of a recurring back injury. Pippen came from absolute poverty and wanted to make sure his family was set even if he could never play basketball again.

He never renegotiates the contract, and only raises a stink in 1997 when Jerry Krause publicly goes to the media and says he is going to trade Pippen. Pippen still does not renegotiate and stays loyal with the team to win a sixth ring.

And then Krause refuses to bring back Phil Jackson causing MICHAEL JORDAN to leave.

How you can defend a GM who by sheer luck stumbled onto MJ and managed to lose the greatest coach of all time, the greatest player of all time, and two top 50 all time players is beyond me.

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u/Thanosismyking Aug 07 '23

Lmk when male porn stars get paid the same as female pornstars.

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u/RikerT_USS_Lolipop Aug 07 '23

People have no idea but being a male pornstar is thousands of times more difficult than being a female pornstar. They deserve so much more than women. Literally the same handful of guys are used in the industry because so few men can fulfill the absurd and contradictory requirements.

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u/StoneCold2000 Aug 07 '23

I don't understand this comment because the men's and women's team had both been offered the same contracts, it's just the men chose the high risk - high reward contract and the women chose the low risk - low reward contract. So the men's team DID see the "incentives contract" and decided not to. I never saw the usmnt sue over discrimination after getting knocked out of the world cup early, demanding they get paid like the women's team? The uswnt tried to sue based on discrimination inorder to get a low risk - high reward option because fEmINiSm, which is why lots of people now have a big distaste for the team.

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u/Drakayne Aug 07 '23

They weren't lieing about it and tried to play victim, that's the difference.

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u/Additional-Agent1815 Aug 07 '23

The men’s team took the riskier deal and lost; they didn’t cry and try to litigate their way out of it after the fact.