Thursday, March 31, 2016
Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo among five female soccer players to file wage complaint against U.S. Soccer
The Women's World Cup champions are calling out their own federation.
Five leading stars of the United States women's national team announced Thursday on NBC's "Today" show that they have filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against U.S. Soccer, claiming wage discrimination relative to the men's national team.
"I think the timing is right," co-captain and reigning world player of the year Carli Lloyd told Matt Lauer on the show. "I think that we've proven our worth over the years. Just coming off of a [2015 Women's] World Cup win, the pay disparity between the men and women is just too large. And we want to continue to fight."
The four other players in the filing, which requests an investigation into U.S. Soccer, are goalkeeper Hope Solo, striker Alex Morgan, playmaker Megan Rapinoe and central defender and co-captain Becky Sauerbrunn.
They believe that the women's national team, which enjoys a national popularity that often exceeds the men's in the mainstream, drives far more revenue to the U.S. Soccer Federation than they are compensated for. The trouble is, as laid out in a recent investigation by the New York Daily News, the financial constructions that channel those incomes are so tousled that there's no telling what money is brought in by the women and how much of it by the men. The women say they have been stonewalled by the federation in their attempts to see the financial statements for themselves.
The players point to the vast disparity in performance bonuses. Indeed, the men's team received more – a shared $2.5 million just for reaching the World Cup – than the women did for winning the entire thing ($1.8 million). A similar gap exists in all other bonuses as well – the men sometimes collect 10 times more for winning a friendly than the women do. The matter, however, is more complex than that. The women, unlike the men, also draw a full-time salary from the federation of up to $72,000, not including up to hundreds of thousands in bonuses they typically collect, a baseline guarantee the men don't enjoy. They are also compensated by the federation for participating in the National Women's Soccer League.
But the men's top earners tend to exceed the women's most years. And while U.S. Soccer deserves credit for investing heavily in the women's program for many years when it was a loss leader, the women argue that they are now being short-changed.
"We have been quite patient over the years with the belief that the Federation would do the right thing and compensate us fairly," Lloyd said in a statement released to The New York Times.
"The numbers speak for themselves," Solo added. "We are the best in the world, have three World Cup championships, four Olympic championships, and the USMNT get paid more to just show up than we get paid to win major championships."
The action comes just months before the women will attempt to win a fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro. And it further escalates the standoff with U.S. Soccer over their working conditions. In December, the women refused to play in one of the friendlies scheduled in a nationwide tour to celebrate the World Cup victory. They argued that the field in Hawaii was subpar, the day after Rapinoe tore her ACL on a poor practice field. U.S. Soccer acknowledged its mistake and apologized.
But within a few months, the two sides had filed a suit and counter-suit against each other over the players' right to strike. The players and the federation are hashing out a new collective bargaining agreement after the last one expired in 2012. While the federation argues that the memorandum of understanding both parties have been working under since then conserves the no-strike clause from the original CBA, the players counter that it does not, because it isn't specified. When the players, through their representative, wouldn't rule out a strike, U.S. Soccer sued to pre-empt one and the players counter-sued.
This entire debate rests on a larger question over women's sports: if women generate less money than men, are they entitled to the same pay for the same work? FIFA pays out a good deal more prize money for the men's World Cup than it does for the women's, arguing that the disparity in revenue is vast. Again, the Daily News pointed out that this was presently impossible to verify, and the Women's World Cup drew enormous television ratings stateside, yet FIFA awards a Women's World Cup-winning team $2 million. When Germany won the men's World Cup in 2014, it collected $35 million.
The women’s national team posits that this entire argument is moot.
"The women have without dispute vastly outperformed the men," their attorney Jeffrey Kessler told the Times, "not just on the playing field but economically for the USSF. The women have generated all the money in comparison with the men."
They just want their fair share.
If their complaint is successful, they could be awarded millions in
back pay. Meanwhile, U.S. Soccer points to its history of funding the
women's game and said through a spokesman that it was "disappointed."
"These women are very
disappointed in U.S. soccer,'' Kessler countered to Lauer. "When they
asked for the same treatment as the men, they were told it was
irrational. Now, that might be a good answer in 1816. It's not
acceptable answer in 2016."
source : yahoonewsHeight of hypocrisy: Michigan limiting Spike Albrecht's transfer options
HOUSTON – Just like every
big-event gathering of college administrators and coaches, there will be
a lot of posturing and pontificating here at this Final Four about
student-athlete welfare. And putting players first. And empowering them.
And so forth.
That is the formulaic rhetoric. But here is what’s happening right now in the real world, on a real college campus to a real student-athlete: He’s being held hostage by conference rules and a coach’s controlling instincts.
At Michigan, guard Spike Albrecht is completing his undergraduate degree this semester. On Monday he announced his intention to transfer elsewhere and play immediately as a graduate transfer. Part of the reason for this is the fact that Albrecht has been recruited over – there would be no room for him at Michigan as a fifth-year player, something coach John Beilein made clear months ago, before Albrecht redshirted this season to have double hip surgery.
"I talked to John Beilein last
year about a redshirt and they told us, 'We’re one over for scholarships
next year, and we’re recruiting a top point guard,' " Chuck Albrecht,
Spike’s father, said. "That was with the anticipation of Spike
graduating."
Yet even though Albrecht will
have a degree, and even though he has been told there is no scholarship
for him at Michigan, the school still has restricted his future choices.
He has not been released to attend another Big Ten school. And the
conference is backing this with its legislation.
“There are 334 other schools he
can go to,” Beilein told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday, almost getting the
math right on 351 minus the other 13 Big Ten members. “He has a lot of
choices.”
But he does not have unlimited choice. Not without sitting out a year. That’s a Big Ten rule, and Michigan will enforce it with Albrecht – just as it did last year with grad transfer Max Bielfeldt.
Bielfeldt filed an appeal with the school, had a hearing in front of a committee unaffiliated with the athletic department and won the right to transfer to Indiana and play immediately. He played a significant role on the Hoosiers’ Sweet 16 team.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Albrecht will do the same thing, and probably get the same result. He will be free to transfer to whatever school he wants, and there likely will be several Big Ten suitors for a guy who has played in 114 career games – and who scored 17 points in a half in his biggest game, the national championship matchup with Louisville in 2013.
But it should never have to come to this. There should be no hearing. It is fundamentally unfair for any school to tell a transfer with a degree where he cannot go – especially if that school has made it clear that he can’t stay there, at least on scholarship.
On top of unfair, it is massively hypocritical of Michigan. Because guess who started at quarterback for the Wolverines last year? Graduate transfer Jake Rudock. From Iowa. That’s Big Ten member institution Iowa.
If Michigan is going to take a grad transfer within the league, how on Earth can it attempt to block one? Or two?
And then there is this eternal double standard: If, say, Beilein chose to retire tomorrow, and Tom Izzo wanted to move from East Lansing to Ann Arbor, he would be welcomed with open arms in about 30 seconds.
Chuck Albrecht is not surprised by this situation, nor is he overly angry. But that doesn’t mean he thinks it’s right.
“To be honest, this is kind of what we expected,” he said. “It’s not totally a surprise. I don’t think it’s real fair, but it seems like the norm.
"There’s certain schools in the Big Ten he’d never consider and others he might, I don’t know. If they’re worried about Spike – I think they’ve got bigger problems. But we do respect Michigan and the program, so Spike doesn’t want to cause problems.”
Spike Albrecht (2) reacts to a shot during Michigan's 2013 national championship loss to Louisville. (AP)
Spike is the second of three college basketball players in the family, and the Albrechts have spent a ton of time and money traveling to watch them play. Chuck is on his third car in the past four years, and estimates he’s been driving 50,000 miles a year during that span.
“We try to never miss,” he said. “Usually I go one way and my wife goes another. But we’re Midwesterners; if Spike goes to California or something, we’re not going to see him play.”
Beilein ordinarily is a reasonable man, and he acknowledged that there is a hearing process for Albrecht to go through. He said the school will assist him. “I love the kid,” he said.
But he does not love the grad-transfer reality that seems to be an increasingly bigger phenomenon. Belein doesn’t think any players should have immediate eligibility as transfers.
“Having a kid sit out a year is not like going to jail,” he said. “It’s a slippery slope. I want what’s best for Spike but also what’s best for our program. You train a guy and develop him for four years and suddenly he’s the starting point guard at Michigan State?”
It’s a galling possibility for a
coach, to be sure. And Beilein does raise one salient point, which has
been discussed quite a bit as schools try to wrap their arms around the
grad-transfer phenomenon: If the players have absolutely no interest in
actually attaining a graduate degree, and simply are majoring in staying
eligible, then it’s an academic sham on par with the one-and-done
situation.
But again, at least the
done-and-one guys have a degree. Which is supposed to be the goal for
all student-athletes, right? At least that’s what all the posturing and
pontificating tells us.
Yet here in the real world, a
player who will have a degree – and who has already been told he’s not
going to have a scholarship in 2016-17 – is still having his future
controlled and curtailed by the college. It’s wrong. And at Michigan,
where the 2015 starting quarterback was a Hawkeye in 2014, it’s also
hypocritical.
source:yahoonews
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