U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Dazzles the World

Hello everybody. I have something to say about the world champion U.S. women’s soccer team.

     I haven’t been feeling very patriotic lately. But all of that changed when I watched the Women’s World Cup final. I saw the ladies from the USA vanquish the ladies from the Netherlands, two to nothing. They won their fourth World Cup for America. The stadium erupted in cheers and the soccer players, hugged and cried and laughed.  It was beautiful. I felt a tear. I was a proud American once again, but that was short-lived.

      The cheers from the crowd changed into chants of “Equal Pay.” I had forgotten that last March, twenty-eight members of the women’s soccer team had filed a lawsuit in federal court charging the U.S. Soccer federation with gender discrimination.

      The women are demanding the same pay and the same treatment that male players get on the men’s team…a team that didn’t qualify for the World Cup this year and has achieved none of the success the women have. Listen, if men won the World Cup, they would win just over a million dollars. The women have to settle for a quarter of that, 250-thousand dollars. That’s wrong and in this country that’s against the law.

       Perhaps the spectacular Gold Cup win by the women will shame U.S. soccer officials into doing the right thing: paying the women, the same money as the men.  Better still, because they’re so good, pay the women more than the men.

Until next time.