* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Women's World Cup champions take home $2 million, while the men's winning team gets $35 million? Some cry foul
Americans are warming up to football, or soccer as they call it here, and especially to the women’s team.
The ratings for the women's FIFA World Cup final, which saw the U.S. team score an impressive 5-2 win against archrival Japan on Sunday, went through the roof, according to TV broadcaster Fox.
"It is the highest metered market rating ever for a soccer game in the U.S. on a single network," Fox said.
Moments from the victory have been shared over and over on social media, including a viral clip of U.S. player Abby Wambach running to kiss her wife after the final whistle.
This year, FIFA, the world football body now at the centre of a huge corruption scandal, doubled the prize money for the winners of the women's tournament, awarding them $2 million.
To those more familiar with the sports world and with the size of footballers' paychecks in major men's leagues, the above mentioned sum is paltry.
After winning last year's men's World Cup, Germany got $35 million. The U.S. men's team received $8 million just for losing.
"Pay for professional women's soccer players is at best paltry and at worst outright shameful compared to those of their male counterparts," Mary Pilon wrote in Politico this week.
The total payout for the Women's World Cup this year will be $15 million, 40 times less than the $576 million that was set aside last year for the men's tournament.
In the U.S., women playing soccer at a professional level have salaries that range between $6,000 and $30,000 - compensations that, in some cases, "may put players below the poverty line in the cities in which they compete," Pilon reported.
FIFA argues that the men's World Cup has been around for much longer, attracts much more attention and brings in a lot more money than the women's, hence the disparity.
"We played the (20th) men's World Cup in 2014, when we are now playing the seventh women's World Cup," a FIFA official said in December, as reported by the Guardian.
"We have still another (13) World Cups before potentially women should receive the same amount as men. The men waited until 2014 to receive as much money as they received."
Some said sure, the pay gap is unfair, but so are the markets.
However, it's not just the money.
Another sticking point during this year's women's World Cup in Canada was the use of artificial turf which is harder than grass and can cause the players nasty injuries such as lacerations.
No men's World Cup has been played on anything but natural grass, according to the Guardian.
Still, many are positive that change is already happening for women footballers.
"In the last four to five years, it's been changing more than maybe in the last 10 or 15," Megan Rapinoe, the midfielder for the U.S. team, said.
"FIFA is still doing crazy things like putting our World Cup on artificial turf, but I think the people with the money just need to realise there is money to be made in our game and I think they're seeing that now," Rapinoe told the Guardian.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
