Revealed: the $730,000 gender pay gap in US World Cup bonuses

The US women’s national team hasn’t even played in the quarter-final of the Women’s World Cup yet, but the players who helped the US qualify and are in France have each already earned $90,000 in bonuses, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

Yet, if the US women were entitled to the same World Cup bonuses as the US men’s national team, their rewards would already be six times larger. The women would’ve already earned around $550,000 each, even with nearly half of the Women’s World Cup left to play.

That’s because the men earn more across the board in World Cup bonuses from US Soccer and, on top of that, they are also entitled to a set of bonuses the women don’t get, such as $4.5m to be shared among the players if the men advance to the knockout round of the World Cup.

The chasm in potential earnings for progressing beyond the last eight only widens from there.

These figures come from a Guardian analysis of World Cup bonuses offered by US Soccer in the collective bargaining agreements for the women’s and men’s national teams. The USWNT’s current CBA, signed in 2017, is not public and has been obtained by the Guardian, although some details were released in a book about the USWNT this year. The bonuses from the men’s CBA, which expired last year but remains in effect during negotiations, were released in legal filings.

A US Soccer spokesperson did not return a request seeking comment on the difference in bonuses between the teams, but the federation argues much of the disparity in bonuses comes down to Fifa. The world governing body offers vastly different prizes for the winners of the men’s and women’s World Cups, which US Soccer in turn distributes to the players. Fifa’s total prize money available to the men in Russia last year was $400m, while it is offering just $30m for the ongoing women’s tournament in France.

But not every bonus in the teams’ US Soccer contracts correlates directly to Fifa prize money. The one bonus the women get that the men do not is a player pool payout of up to $1.4m for a four-game post-World Cup victory tour if they win the trophy. But notably, this bonus requires winning the World Cup first. The men earn exclusive bonuses for the most marginal of successes, such $218,750 for the team for every point earned during the group stage of the World Cup. The women, who collected all nine points in the group stage of this tournament, could’ve earned an extra $1.97m if that bonus applied to them.

The new light shed on the disparity in World Cup bonuses is a reminder of the battle the USWNT has waiting for them once the tournament ends. The players filed a lawsuit against US Soccer earlier this year alleging institutionalized gender discrimination, with the gap in compensation between the men and women serving as a central part of their argument. Both parties have agreed to take the complaint to mediation, but the possibility of a trial still looms.

It should be noted that US Soccer pays its female players fixed salaries, something not extended to their male counterparts. So while the US men’s compensation is reliant on bonuses, the majority of USWNT players are paid $100,000 in salaries, plus an additional $62,500 to $67,500 for playing in the US Soccer-backed National Women’s Soccer League.

The women’s bonuses have also grown over the years, and their current CBA offers their largest bonuses yet. Under their previous CBA, a player would earn a total of $30,000 if she helped the US qualify for the World Cup and were named to the final tournament roster. Under the new CBA that player would earn $75,000. Winning the World Cup is now worth $110,000 per player, compared to $75,000 under the old CBA. Notably, the USWNT’s lawsuit against US Soccer uses these older numbers, which make the gap in bonuses appear larger, rather than using the bonuses from their current CBA, which has not been made public. A spokeswoman for the USWNT players union did not return a request seeking comment.

But the women have made the legal case that total compensation for the men is higher, even with the salaries the women earn, because the men’s bonuses are so much larger. In that sense, the ongoing Women’s World Cup offers a glaring look at just how skewed the bonuses can be in favor of the men.

If the US men had qualified in the hexagonal and went onto win the 2018 World Cup in Russia, US Soccer would’ve paid top male players a minimum of nearly $1m each, based on what it took for Panama to qualify for the last spot in Concacaf. Though some men would’ve earned less if they played fewer games during qualifying, the bonuses could’ve been even larger if the US performed particularly well during qualifiers or the World Cup, notching more wins and more points that trigger bonuses.

The women, meanwhile, can’t get anywhere near that if they win the World Cup in France in just two weeks’ time. At most, US Soccer would pay the women $260,870 each, which is roughly a quarter of what the regular starters for the men would earn en route to winning a World Cup.

But if Fifa prize money is the basis for most of the bonuses US Soccer provides the players, the federation is wiling to overpay the women – but only as long as they win the World Cup. US Soccer’s $9.4m bonus for the men’s team if they win the World Cup is 24% of Fifa’s $38m in prize, whereas US Soccer’s bonus of $2.5m for the women’s team if they win the World Cup is around 126% of Fifa’s prize money offered when the USWNT’s CBA was signed in 2017. (Fifa has since increased the women’s prize money from $2m for the World Cup winner to $4m.)

The US women need to get through France on Friday if they want to claim that $4m top prize. It will pale in comparison to what they could’ve earned if they were entitled to the bonuses men got, but it will still be the most they’ve ever won.