{"id":1315827,"date":"2019-10-18T14:52:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T20:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/megan-rapinoe-enjoys-whirlwind-focuses-on-soccer-pay-fight\/"},"modified":"2019-10-18T14:52:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T20:52:00","slug":"megan-rapinoe-enjoys-whirlwind-focuses-on-soccer-pay-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/megan-rapinoe-enjoys-whirlwind-focuses-on-soccer-pay-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"Megan Rapinoe enjoys whirlwind, focuses on soccer pay fight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019, photo soccer star Megan Rapinoe poses for photos on the red carpet of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 40th annual Salute to Women in Sports in New York. Rapinoe, who was honored at the gala, won Sportswoman of the Year in the team category. She led the U.S. women’s soccer team to victory at the World Cup in France and earned the FIFA Player of the Year award. (AP Photo\/Mary Altaffer)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Megan Rapinoe is enjoying the whirlwind of a two-time World Cup winner.<\/p>\n

She picked up the FIFA Player of the Year award in Milan rocking a deeper shade of lavender hair, sent off retiring U.S. coach Jill Ellis with an undefeated victory tour and kept up the fight for pay equity against the U.S. Soccer Federation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very surreal to say the least,\u201d Rapinoe said. \u201cDowntime? When I sleep, that\u2019s my only rest time. It\u2019s mostly good stuff, so hard to complain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Julie Foudy, a World Cup champion with the U.S. in 1991 and \u201899, calls Rapinoe the \u201cgolden girl.\u201d She won the FIFA Golden Boot and the Golden Ball for most goals and best player, respectively, after the U.S. beat the Netherlands 2-0 in July at the World Cup in France.<\/p>\n

Now she\u2019s the winner of the Women\u2019s Sports Foundation\u2019s Sportswoman of the Year award, presented at the 40th annual event hosted by Billie Jean King on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re such a force in women\u2019s sports and beyond,\u201d Rapinoe said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Rapinoe and her teammates were feted with a ticker-tape parade in New York after their World Cup victory. She shared the same float with U.S. Soccer Federation President Carlos Cordeiro, basking in the chants of \u201cUSA\u201d and \u201cEqual Pay.\u201d The U.S. women\u2019s team sued the federation in March for gender and pay discrimination.<\/p>\n

At the post-parade celebration at City Hall, Cordeiro said, \u201cWe believe at U.S. Soccer that all female athletes deserve fair and equitable pay.\u201d However, so far the two sides haven\u2019t reached an agreement, with a May 5 trial date set in federal court in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Rapinoe says there\u2019s a \u201cmajor discrepancy\u201d in pay for accomplishing the same success on the field compared to the U.S. men\u2019s team. The 34-year-old said she can\u2019t understand why female athletes must fight their soccer federation so hard for pay and benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess other than just not believing that we deserve it or not willing to pay,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it\u2019s really counterintuitive, you have two really amazing products in both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams that are both very successful by a lot of different metrics. It\u2019s a huge growing business. Soccer in general is growing exponentially in the country, so why not be able to leverage your best assets instead of fighting them all the time?\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Soccer has maintained that compensation for each team is the result of separate collective bargaining agreements and the pay structures are different as a result. The federation has also said the men generate more revenue than the women.<\/p>\n

However, that argument has been debated by the women\u2019s legal representatives, given the women\u2019s two consecutive World Cup titles and the revenue generated from both victory tours.<\/p>\n

The U.S. capped its latest victory tour with a 1-1 tie against South Korea before a crowd of 33,027 at Soldier Field on Oct. 6. Rapinoe lofted a perfect pass on a corner kick to Carli Lloyd, whose header tied the match.<\/p>\n

Rapinoe said it\u2019s 50-50 on a settlement before the trial date.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would probably be in everyone\u2019s best interests not to drag this thing out or drag it through court, but that\u2019s really up to them,\u201d she said. \u201cWe deserve what is fair and right under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rapinoe received the FIFA player of the year award in Milan last month but didn\u2019t get a chance to talk with FIFA President Gianni Infantino about another pay gap \u2014 the U.S. women\u2019s team received $4 million for winning the World Cup while the French men\u2019s team received $38 million in 2018.<\/p>\n

Infantino has said FIFA\u2019s total prize money for the participating women\u2019s teams will double from $30 million to $60 million at the 2023 World Cup. The men\u2019s teams received $400 million in total prize money in 2018.<\/p>\n

King knows something about a pay fight. She threatened a boycott of the 1973 U.S. Open, reaching an agreement with a company to pay the difference before tennis leaders offered equal pay to the winners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019d be heroes if they did it,\u201d King said of the U.S. Soccer leadership. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing to do, right side of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Rapinoe will be aiming for another title when her club team, Reign FC, faces defending champion North Carolina in a National Women\u2019s Soccer League semifinal. The final is Oct. 27.<\/p>\n

The next match for the U.S. team is an exhibition against Sweden on Nov. 7 in Columbus, Ohio. New U.S. general manager Kate Markgraf, a former national player, wants to hire a replacement for Ellis by then. Rapinoe\u2019s Reign coach Vlatko Andonovski is among the candidates.<\/p>\n

Rapinoe believes women\u2019s sports are \u201cin a different place\u201d since Mia Hamm, Michelle Akers and Foudy fought similar pay issues 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

The WNBA players\u2019 union and the WNBA, where Rapinoe\u2019s partner Sue Bird is a star for the Seattle Storm, are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement to improve wages. The U.S. women\u2019s hockey team threatened a boycott of the 2017 World Championships to leverage better salaries and benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the age-old tale,\u201d Rapinoe said. \u201cThe powerful have always kept a lot of the benefits of that power for themselves. With women in particular, you have the Me Too movement, Times Up. A lot of sports leagues \u2014 yeah, people are sick of it. I think women in general just feel really empowered in this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2019, photo soccer star Megan Rapinoe poses for photos on the red carpet of the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 40th annual Salute to Women in Sports in New York. Rapinoe, who was honored at the gala, won Sportswoman of the Year in the team category. She led the U.S. women’s soccer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 17:59:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}