The US women’s soccer team is on top of the world after beating Japan to secure the FIFA world cup. But why are the female winners being paid less than the male losers?

Sexism, plain and simple.

Although a record-breaking 25 million-plus viewers tuned in to the world cup finale, “shower of gold confetti and gold medals can’t make up the difference between the $35 million FIFA awarded to Germany, the 2014 men’s World Cup winner, and the $2 million the United States team collected Sunday night.


In the men’s tournament, teams receive $1.5 million just for participating. To be fair, the men bring in much more money through every imaginable revenue stream, but the $2 million women’s championship prize shows just how little FIFA values female players and their game.”

Clearly, women’s soccer—and women’s sports more generally—has the potential to draw in viewers and create new fans. However, FIFA, an organization plagued by ethics concerns, has deeply engrained sexist practices that treat women’s soccer as an afterthought and men’s soccer as the main event.

While professional sports is known for its misogyny more generally, much, though certainly not all of FIFA’s sexism can be traced to its leadership. Although FIFA head Sepp Blatter calls himself the “godfather of women’s soccer,” he has been completely unabashed with his sexism. For one, Blatter apparently didn’t even recognize some of the most famous female soccer players, Team USA’s Alex Morgan. Morgan reveals that back in 2012, “At the FIFA World Player of the Year event FIFA executives and FIFA president Sepp Blatter didn’t know who [she] was.” Morgan was being honored as one of the top three athletes in the world and Blatter was completely out of the loop.

Some godfather of soccer.

Blatter is not only dismissive of female soccer talent, he insists on openly objectifying women. For example, Blatter has suggested that women’s uniforms be more “feminine”:  "Let the women play in more feminine clothes like they do in volleyball. They could, for example, have tighter shorts…Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men - such as playing with a lighter ball…That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?"

The head of an international soccer organization is more concerned with women’s outfits and their sexual desirability than their talent and ability. It is no surprise, then, that women’s soccer has taken a back seat to men’s sports.

To that end, not only is the pay not equal, neither are their accommodations. For example, women players, unlike their male counterparts, play on astroturf rather than on real grass. US team player Sydney Leroux admits, “Between men and women… this is not equal. For us to be playing the biggest tournament for women’s soccer on artificial grass is unacceptable. The game is completely different. It’s fake. So you don’t know how it’s gonna bounce. You don’t know how the ball is gonna run. It’s terrible for your body. The constant pounding. You’re running pretty much on cement…We’re the guinea pigs.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Women’s soccer has the potential to parallel or even surpass their male counterparts. However, there will need to be massive structural change to even the proverbial playing field.