Petition Asking FIFA To Pay Women Players Fairly After World Cup Ends
Soccer News: Sunday evening, after 16 years, the United States Women’s National Team became World Champions for the third time. Many records were broken that night: this finals saw the most goals scored in Women’s World Cup history, the USWNT became the first to be World Champions three times, and a record 25.4 million viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen ratings data—that is significantly more than the US vs. Portugal match in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and the NBA finals.
But despite the impressive performance from the USWNT, and the other national women’s soccer teams, FIFA only paid the World Champions only $2 million—$7 million less than the award for the men’s team who lost in the second round. The total prize money for the 2015 Women’s World Cup increased by 50% from $10 million to $15 million—40 times less than the total payout for the 2014 Men’s World Cup where the total prize money was $576 million.
The world has seen and embraced the potential women’s soccer has to offer—it has called for action against the gender pay discrimination. Ultraviolet, an advocacy group for equal rights for women has created a petition asking FIFA to end its gender pay discrimination and pay the women’s team fairly. This has been one of the most successful campaigns for Ultraviolet as they received 60,000 signatures in the first 24 hours of the campaign.
Many have shared the petition on social media sites. It has reached the attention of both high profile leaders and athletes. Golden Glove winner, Hope Solo tweeted about the pay discrimination as she shared a picture of a fan holding a sign saying “Equal Pay 4 Athletes.” New York Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney has also joined the efforts to pressure FIFA to end this gender discrimination. On her website, a copy of the letter the Congresswoman wrote to former FIFA President Sepp Blatter is included in a press release. In it, she asks him to “reconsider and revise FIFA’s discriminatory