US women’s soccer player on pay equity agreement: ‘I am feeling extreme pride’

U.S. women’s soccer player Becky Sauerbrunn said early Wednesday said that she feels “extreme pride” after the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) reached a milestone pay equity agreement with the men’s and women’s soccer teams. 

“I am feeling extreme pride. And to be able to say, finally, equal pay for equal work feels very, very good,” Sauerbrunn, the United States Women’s National Team Players Association president, told NBC’s “Today.”

Sauerbrunn, who plays professionally for the NWSL’s Portland Thorns FC, also said that the new pay equity agreement is long overdue. 

“It’s tough to get so, so excited about something that we really should have had all along,” Sauerbrunn said. 

In a statement on Wednesday, the USSF said it had reached two new collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the men’s and women’s national team unions, meaning that both teams will receive identical compensation for all competitions and have the same commercial revenue-sharing mechanism.

USSF will also become the first soccer federation to equalize FIFA World Cup prize money awarded to both U.S. national teams for their participation in the global soccer tournament, and the new CBAs will address non-economic terms such as player health and safety. 

U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone told “Today” that the men’s players union should be credited for its involvement in reaching this landmark pay equity agreement. 

“And I think we need to give the men a lot of credit,” she said. “They came to the table and were very collaborative and worked together with the women’s team first and then came together with U.S. Soccer.”

“I think this is going to have international ramifications in sport in general and hopefully into the business world, as well,” Cone added.