‘Blatant Misogyny’: U.S. Women Protest, and U.S. Soccer Apologizes

The United States Soccer Federation apologized Wednesday night for arguing in legal filings this week that “indisputable science” proved that the players on its World Cup-winning women’s national team were inferior to men.

Facing on-field protests by the women’s players and withering criticism from major federation sponsors like Coca-Cola, U.S. Soccer’s president, Carlos Cordeiro, attempted to mitigate damage to the organization that had grown out of a series of legal filings in the women’s gender discrimination and equal pay lawsuit. In those documents, the federation’s lawyers had argued that it required more “skill” and “responsibility” to play for the men’s team than the women’s equivalent.

“On behalf of U.S. Soccer,” Cordeiro said, “I sincerely apologize for the offense and pain caused by language in this week’s court filing, which did not reflect the values of our federation or our tremendous admiration of our women’s national team.”

The arguments, made as the team and U.S. Soccer face an increasingly unbridgeable gap as they brace for a federal trial in May, infuriated the players.

“To see that blatant misogyny and sexism as the argument used against us is really disappointing,” midfielder Megan Rapinoe said after her team’s 3-1 win over Japan in the U.S. Soccer-organized SheBelieves Cup on Wednesday night.

“I know that we’re in a contentious fight,” she added in comments to reporters in Frisco, Texas, “but that crossed a line completely.”

Rapinoe added that the legal filings, made by some of the same lawyers who will face the players across the table in collective bargaining negotiations next year, had caused “irreparable damage” to the relationship between the team and U.S. Soccer. But they also appeared to damage important relationships between the federation and its sponsors.

Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Visa and Deloitte — the presenting sponsor of the SheBelieves Cup — all condemned U.S. Soccer in recent days. “While our support for the team is unwavering, we are deeply offended by the views expressed by the U.S.S.F.,” a spokesman for Deloitte told The Wall Street Journal. Notably, Nike, which paid the federation $22 million last year and is its biggest sponsor, has yet to comment on the filing.

It was not the first time the equal pay fight had seen sponsors side with the team against the federation they pay. Last summer, Procter & Gamble urged the federation to be “on the right side of history” in the dispute, and donated more than $500,000 to the women’s team’s players association. Nike and Visa also said they supported the players at the time.

The players made their own statement on Wednesday. Before the game against Japan, they came onto the field for pregame drills with their training tops turned inside out — obscuring the U.S. Soccer crest and Nike’s logo, leaving visible only the four stars representing the team’s four World Cup triumphs.

“I think it was a powerful message, without having to really send a message,” striker Carli Lloyd said after the victory, answering questions in front of a backdrop that featured the logos of Coca-Cola, Visa, Budweiser, Nike and other sponsors.

She added: “We don’t want to be in this position, but we are here and it’s just got to be better.”

Before the night ended, the blank crest with the four stars was showing up in fans’ social media avatars and on shirts that were licensed by the players’ union.

The filing, made late Monday night, opposed the women’s team’s motion for partial summary judgment in the equal pay lawsuit. In it, U.S. Soccer argued “the job of MNT player carries more responsibility within U.S. Soccer than the job of WNT player,” using the abbreviations for the men’s and women’s national teams, in regards to a claim under the equal pay act. They also argued the job of a men’s team player “requires a higher level of skill based on speed and strength.”

Julie Foudy, an ESPN commentator and former member of the women’s team, criticized the federation on television during halftime of the match, specifically calling out Cordeiro

“What somebody there didn’t realize — and if it is Carlos Cordeiro we have larger issues — is the damage this is going to cause,” Foudy said. “And not just to the players but to sponsors, to the public sentiment, to fans, to everybody involved in the game, when you are basically saying, ‘You’re not as good, and now we have affirmed it to you, and you’re not as deserving.’”

While the filing may have been stark in its tone, it wasn’t appreciably different from the legal strategy U.S. Soccer has pursued for the past year. “That all sounded pretty similar to what we’ve heard before,” Rapinoe said after the game. “You want to talk about hostility? Every negotiation that we have, those undertones are in there, that we are lesser.”

She added that she believed the apology wasn’t directed toward the players, but instead toward fans, the news media and sponsors. “For him to put that out, saying sorry, presumably to us — we don’t buy it,” she said.

After two days of being pilloried by players, sponsors and fans, U.S. Soccer seemed to realize that what its lawyers believe are winning legal arguments won’t necessarily be received well in a high-profile case where every legal filing is immediately dissected publicly.

Cordeiro said he had hired a new law firm to join the federation’s side in the gender discrimination case “and guide our legal strategy going forward.”

“I have made it clear to our legal team that even as we debate facts and figures in the course of this case, we must do so with the utmost respect not only for our women’s national team players but for all female athletes around the world,” he said.

Assuming that the judge in the case does not grant either side’s motions for summary judgment — a ruling that essentially says one side has proved its argument without need for a trial — and that a settlement is not forthcoming, the case is scheduled to go to trial May 5.