After much debate in recent years over the pay gap between men and women’s soccer, the U.S. Soccer Federation has finally agreed to pay both teams the same amount of money. Not only will the players make the same for every game and competition, they will also share prize money earned from the World Cup.

The women’s national team has a reputation for performing exceptionally at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, winning the title four times since the start of the competition. Soccer fans have said that it’s shocking that it has taken this long to pay the women’s team equally, especially with the team winning more titles than the men, who have never been able to win the World Cup.

“It’s great that the women’s national team is finally getting the rewards they deserve after decades of success,” Travis Smith (12, HSU) said.

FIFA will give out $440 million in prize money after the final game of the Men’s World Cup in Qatar, but only $30 million was divvied out after the Women’s World Cup in 2019. There are 32 mens’ teams competing this year compared to the 24 that competed at the Women’s World Cup. However, this still doesn’t justify the gender pay gap in soccer; each mens’ team averages more than $13 million, while each womens’ team only averages a little over $1 million.

Unfortunately, this recent closing of the gender pay gap in soccer has only changed in America because of an agreement by the U.S. Soccer Federation. There are still many other countries that have progress to make in terms of their pay gap in soccer. Although places like New Zealand, Brazil, Australia, England, Ireland and the Netherlands have taken steps to improve this, women in Canada and Spain are still fighting.

“You know for us as players I’m just so proud of the way we stuck together and really just put our foot down. This is a huge win for us,” US player Megan Rapinoe (#15) said.

The US men’s team will take home $13 million from the World Cup after being eliminated from the round of 16; half of this money will go to the women’s team.