Five members of the U.S. women's national soccer team -- including Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan -- have filed on behalf of the entire team a wage-discrimination action against the U.S. Soccer Federation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The filing, citing figures from the USSF's 2015 financial report, says that despite the women's team generating nearly $20 million more revenue last year than the U.S. men's team, the women are paid almost four times less.
"Recently, it has become clear that the Federation has no intention of providing us equal pay for equal work," Megan Rapinoe said in a news release, after also attaching her name to the filing along with Becky Sauerbrunn.
Tim Howard, the men's national team goalie, told ESPN's SportsCenter on Thursday that the men's team supports the women's team fight.
"We support the fact that the women should fight for their rights and fight for what they think is just compensation. We, on the men's side, have been fighting that battle for a long, long time," Howard told SportsCenter. "We certainly know what it feels like. We felt underpaid for a long time. We had to negotiate our way to a settlement."
Landon Donovan also chimed in on Twitter.
Among the numbers cited in the EEOC filing are that the women would earn $99,000 each if they won 20 friendlies, the minimum number they are required to play in a year. But the men would likely earn $263,320 each for the same feat, and would get $100,000 even if they lost all 20 games. Additionally, the women get paid nothing for playing more than 20 games, while the men get between $5,000 and $17,625 for each game played beyond 20.
"Every single day we sacrifice just as much as the men. We work just as much," Morgan told "Today." "We endure just as much physically and emotionally. Our fans really do appreciate us every day for that. We saw that with the high of last summer. We're really asking, and demanding now, that our federation, and our employer really, step up and appreciate us as well."
Also greatly disparate, according to the figures, is the pay for playing in the World Cup. The U.S. women received a team total of $2 million when it won the World Cup last year in Canada. Yet when the U.S. men played in the World Cup in Brazil in 2014, the team earned a total of $9 million despite going just 1-2-1 and being knocked out in the round of 16.
Many players on the national team have become increasingly vocal about gender equity in the sport, something that came to light in advance of last year's World Cup in Canada. A group of players led by Abby Wambach filed a complaint in Canada about the artificial turf playing surface, noting the men's World Cup is played on natural grass.
After the women won the World Cup with a 5-2 victory over Japan in the final, the turf issue arose again during a victory tour when a game in Hawaii was canceled because the artificial turf was deemed unsafe.
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