Interesting development in this:
USWNT Players Association: U.S. Soccer's identical deals proposal is a 'PR stunt' (espn.com)
The USWNT was apparently offered the same contract as the men and are calling it a PR stunt. It is tough to chose a side in this situation as I think both sides (USWNT and US Soccer) are being disingenuous in their arguments. The women were offered the men's contract last time and turned it down as their contract was more lucrative than the men's at the base pay level (ie, the top women's players receive a guaranteed salary while the men only get paid if they play in a game). That makes sense. On the flip side the men's team gets paid more if they win something, especially the WC (
) because the FIFA bonus pool is higher. Essentially the USWNT wants both guaranteed salaries and also WC share the size of the men's, even though that is "dictated" by FIFA.
I guess I would say pay them since at least they win shit, but I wish they would stop yelling about how they are getting paid less then the men when the opposite is true (when it comes to salary).
The caveat to the above is I am basing it on what I can gather from media reports and, seeing as how soccer/football reporting in the US is rather shit and very biased one way or the other I may be completely wrong.