Yes, it's a good summary. The NY Times did one a couple of years ago that was similar.
The bottom line is that the situation is very complex. The Federation's finances are opaque, and the men and women have very different structures under which they are paid. It is really hard to determine which team is generating more money and whether there is a substantial pay disparity.
I think the women have been somewhere between disingenuous and dishonest in how they've portrayed the situation. For example in their public statements a couple of years ago, they complained about the inequity in game bonuses, without mentioning the fact that they receive salaries while the men do not; and they pointed out a difference in per diem rates without disclosing that the difference was because they had delayed the start of their new CBA and the difference was repaid once they signed the CBA. This has rather soured me on their side of the issue.
That said, I suspect that the women's team probably isn't getting treated with full equity, and that there is more that the Federation should be doing to pay their players more. I also suspect that the Federation is operating in good faith and that any difference is not that big. This is just my gut after having read up on the issue.
I think the women see their success and the overall compensation that equally successful men receive and bristle that they are only getting a fraction. Abby Wambach has talked about being on an ESPN awards stage with Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning and how frustrating it was to know they were set for life and she was not.
That said, the women are taking the easiest legal redress available to them and striking out at the source of income that is treating them the most fairly. The Federation pays them reasonably well. Their league does not, because it cannot, but solving that problem is more complicated that filing a lawsuit. FIFA is a whole different problem - underselling and undermonitizing the WWC and then using that as an excuse to pay women much less, but it is a lot harder for the players to sue FIFA than to sue the Federation.
The whole thing is a mess. Hopefully, the trial will be fair and thoughtful and the disgraceful politicking around the issue will subside. The one thing that is really disappointing is when people just assume that the women are correct and the Federation is evil without really caring to dig into the issue.
This is very well stated.
I found this article from The Guardian as a great resource:
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...731003-gender-pay-gap-in-us-world-cup-bonuses
This really only gets into World Cup associated bonuses (qualifying and actual tournament performance), and I think paints a pretty good picture of where US Soccer isn't providing both sides the same options, even FIFA $ aside.
It also gives additional context around how you mentioned a bit of disingenuity from the women. The article mentions: "Notably, the USWNT’s lawsuit against US Soccer uses these older numbers, which make the gap in bonuses appear larger, rather than using the bonuses from their current CBA, which has not been made public. A spokeswoman for the USWNT players union did not return a request seeking comment."
- The first bonus they mentioned about qualifying for the World Cup is an odd one. It mentions that the men would receive a bonus of $2.5m to be distributed "up to the players depending on how many games they played". It mentions that "top players" would earn around $108,695 - that figure is $2.5m/23 players. It doesn't provide context around the $37.5k bonus the womens players would get (does every player receive the same amount no matter how many games?). Either way, this does appear to be a bonus that is not directly using prize money from FIFA.
- The second bonus is the qualification win bonus and again, this one does not use prize money from FIFA. $12.5k vs $3k is quite a gap, and this gap grows much, much larger pretty quickly as the men play 11 more qualification games than the women.
The other bonuses get into actual World Cup performance related items and this is where things get a bit murkier in terms of how FIFA distributes WC prize money. The prize for winning the WC is well documented, but I'm not sure what other distributions there are and based on what.
It is interesting to note though, that the US women do not receive a per point bonus but the men do. And then it also goes into percentages of prize money that is paid out. If the men were to win the WC (big if), the players would receive 24% of the $38m prize whereas the women winning the WC this year will receive 126% of the $2.5m prize.
And then, as you mention, the salaries vs bonuses thing is an interesting item to point, and still isn't something that we have a whole ton of clarity on. For example, I'd be curious to look at compensation tied to performance data (not goals/assists, just looking at minutes and roster availability - i.e., on the roster) and how that shakes out for the men vs women. I'm sure it would shake out that the men are being paid more, but I'd be interested to see what the variance is (non-World Cup) and how that looks across players playing a ton of minutes (i.e., Pulisic vs Morgan), players playing decent minutes (i.e., Roldan vs Press) and players playing little minutes (i.e., Lewis vs Pugh).
