The men’s soccer union has joined in on the U.S. women’s soccer team’s call for equal pay. Last Friday, the head of the U.S. National Soccer Team Players Association (USNSTPA), which represents players for the men’s team, filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In their filing, the men’s union backed up the women’s national team by insisting their female counterparts were not only unfairly paid but that they were deserving of more pay than the men’s team. The brief goes on to allege that the May 2020 dismissal of the women’s team’s claims was another indication of how women’s soccer was a victim of unfair treatment, unequal pay, and discrimination.

In their court filing, the men’s union highlights that the women have faced discrimination because of the lack of equal pay. The U.S. Soccer Federation discriminated against the Women's National Team despite the Federation’s slogan of “One Nation, One Team.” The brief reads that the “Federation has treated the Women’s National Team players as second-class citizens, discriminating against the women in their wages and working conditions and paying them less than the Men’s National Team players, even as U.S. Soccer has enjoyed a period of extraordinary financial growth.” The brief adds, “The Federation has never offered or provided equal pay to the women, and the district court’s holding to the contrary cannot be squared with the facts.”

Last week, US soccer shared a statement on behalf of the May 2020 ruling dismissing many of the claims made in a lawsuit filed by the WNT. “In ruling in favor of U.S. Soccer on the players’ pay discrimination claims, the District Court rightly noted that the Women’s National Team negotiated for a different pay structure than the Men’s National Team, and correctly held that the Women’s National Team was paid more both cumulatively and on an average per-game basis than the Men’s National Team.” Their statement adds, “U.S. Soccer is firmly committed to equal pay, just as the members of our senior national teams are.”

In the brief filed by the men’s union, U.S. Soccer Federation’s claims are contested. “A woman’s rate of pay is not equal to a man’s if the woman must consistently achieve better outcomes merely to get to the same place,” wrote Mark S. Levinstein, the acting director for the men’s union. This brief comes shortly after lawyers for the WNT filed an appeal after a judge shot down their lawsuit over a year ago. The appeal argues that the judge's dismissal of the case was “legally wrong,” adding that the ruling “defies reality” because the court did not look at the WNT’s compensation as compared to their win rate.

The men's union stated of the dismissed lawsuit that "the district court's oversimplified math made the women victims both of their own success and of the men's atypical struggles in 2017-2018." This statement is in reference to the judge’s decision that the WNT players were not victims of unequal pay after U.S. Soccer showed that women were paid $220,747 and that men were paid $212,639 per game. The analysis brought forward by U.S. Soccer takes the total compensation given to both teams and divides that by the number of games each team played.

Federal Judge R. Gary Klausner who wrote the opinion in the May 2020 dismissal explained that "The WNT rejected an offer to be paid under the same pay-to-play structure as the MNT and ... the WNT was willing to forgo higher bonuses for other benefits, such as greater base compensation and the guarantee of a higher number of contracted players."

Klausner went on to add, "Accordingly, Plaintiffs cannot now retroactively deem their CBA worse than the MNT CBA by reference to what they would have made had they been paid under the MNT's pay-to-play structure when they themselves rejected such a structure."

In reference to the bonus pay received by players of the WNT, the men's union argued that despite the women going on to win two World Cups while their counterparts failed to qualify for one, their bonus pay was lower than the men's in nearly every situation.

The men's Union wrote, "A woman's rate of pay is not equal to a man's if the woman must consistently achieve better outcomes merely to get to the same place. If the women had won fewer games, or if the district court had analyzed a more representative period of the men's performance as a point of comparison, the per-game disparity would have been obvious, glaring, and undeniable."

In regards to the collective bargaining agreements which differ between the men's team and the women's team, the men's union stood behind the woman saying that the women's team was forced into "an untenable bargaining position," especially considering that there was only one Federation available for women to play for and that negotiations for their pay were severely limited because of this. "The district court's analysis of the collective bargaining process was flawed through and through," the men’s union wrote.

The brief went a step further to allege that the Federation knowingly directed its efforts to "substantial revenue to litigating and lobbying, in the misguided hope of preserving a system that treats the women as inferior." They go on to add, "By dismissing the women's claims of discriminatory pay as nothing more than a bargained-for result, the district court endorsed the Federation's long-running abuse of its total control over athletes' ability to represent the United States to impose unfair compensation arrangements."

Following the men's union legal filing, U.S. Soccer asked the court for an extension for their answering brief. The extension was granted and the U.S. Soccer Federation is set to respond by September 22.