March 15, 2022 • 34 mins
The 2019 World Cup-champion U.S. Women’s National Team was arguably the most dominant team ever fielded by the most dominant institution in soccer. But striker Jessica McDonald remembers that for many people, what that team represented off the field was more important than what it accomplished on it, as fans around the world rallied behind the players’ public battle for equal pay. Legends of the women's game — including Julie Foudy, Michelle Akers and Joy Fawcett — look back at the early days of the USWNT, and a gritty fight for equality that had been unfolding behind the scenes for decades.
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To continue supporting journalism like this, visit charlotteobserver.com/payback or newsobserver.com/payback .
The host of Payback is Alex Andrejev. It's produced by Kata Stevens, Casey Toth, Julia Wall, and executive producer Davin Coburn. The executive producer for iHeartRadio is Sean Titone.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Long Shot. I'm executive producer Davin Coburn. This
is our second season of audio documentaries at the intersection
of sports and social change, reported by McClatchy newsrooms around
the country. This season, we're heading to North Carolina, the
heart of women's soccer in America and the place where
former U S national team striker Jessica McDonald became one
(00:21):
of the most remarkable figures in sports. This podcast began
as a story about the national team's fight for equal pay,
McDonald's role in that legal battle and their groundbreaking settlement
with the US Soccer Federation, But over more than a
year of reporting, this story became an investigation into structural
inequities rampant in the women's game, and a look at
(00:42):
how McDonald's journey ties together so many of those threads.
The lead reporter for this season is Alexandreev. She's the
head soccer writer at The Charlotte Observer, and she'll be
your host for all ten episodes. A listener note this
podcast contains adult language and adult themes, including harassment and
alleged abuse against women, including from one of McDonald's former coaches.
(01:06):
Allegations will address in a later episode and now from
The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News An Observer, McClatchy Studios, and
I Heart Radio, This is Long Shot Season two payback.
It's the minute of the Women's World Cup Final in Leon, France.
(01:30):
The US women's national team leaves the Netherlands one zero
when midfielder Rose Lavell cuts to her left at the
top of the penalty box and carves her name in
American soccer history. Looking with the two goal lead and
yet another World Cup title in their sites, nothing was
going to stop the American women That's it us, hands
(01:54):
it hold hold. Some of the players on the team
have become household names Megan Rapino, come Back the Neck,
Alex Morgan, Scot. But for many of those players and
their fans, what that us when meant off the field
(02:17):
could prove to be more important than what it meant
on it Because the players made snow angels and sparkling confetti.
Ark Olympique Leone erupted in Chance, fans around the world
rallying behind not just a team, but a movement. The
US women's soccer teams behind the scenes battle with its
(02:38):
own parent federation exploding on a global stage. This morning,
negotiations breaking down between women Soccer and the US Soccer
Federation over the fight. The federation was never willing to
offer the women equal pay. The numbers were always worse
for the women, so in order to get equality, they
had it performed twice as well. This is not just
(02:59):
about money. This is about generations of discrimination against women
on the basis of their gender. I'm Alexandre of lead
soccer writer for The Charlotte Observer, and for the past
year I've been reporting on a women's game at a
crossroads and maybe in crisis. Women's soccer is turned upside
down after a shocking report that a prominent male coach
(03:22):
is accused of coercing players into having sex. This podcast
began as an investigation into the US players fight for
equal pay, an issue with far more nuance than a tweet.
The women were empowered to negotiate their own contract and
the contract that they wanted. But what became apparent is
that there's so much more to this story, and reporting
(03:43):
that began about equal pay quickly became a wide ranging
investigation into how so many different components of social inequity
coalesce and a women's game long struggling for legitimacy. I
think there has been a huge change, and I think
there has been no change. We're still talking about the
same damn shit. Over the past year, I spoke with
current players across all levels of major women's soccer in
(04:04):
the US and legends from the game's past. There was
just a level of disrespect. We thought, what we're asking
for is not a lot. I spoke with players, families
and friends, and I sat down for a rare one
on one conversation with the president of the US Soccer
Federation responsible for settling the player's groundbreaking lawsuit. Has the
federation been perfect? Absolutely not. But I've done everything to
(04:28):
address the things that I can address. I discovered along
the way that women's soccer, there's no story quite like
Jessica McDonald's. Jessica McDonald making her first start for the
US women's national team. How about that the striker from
that twenty nineteen World Cup team who might not be
a household name, but whose story you'll never forget ran
(04:50):
away from home when I was seventeen years old. I
wasn't just scared. I was scared for my life. Jessica,
She's had some very difficult moments in her life, but
there's something inside the great athlete that is why they're great.
Whose personal battle provides a shocking perspective as she tells
her story for the first time, Thank God for sports.
That was my escape. And then I find out I'm
pregnant with my son, giving the national team's battle a
(05:13):
new light. I've always been the only mom on many
teams I played for. I could have a bad game
and my child would get blamed. Building her own legacy
while standing alongside her teammates as they set the stage
for generations to come. Imagine women in workforces everywhere having
to fight less to be valued the same, especially for
(05:34):
the little girls who wouldn't be in our shoes. One day.
You could totally be badass and be a mom at
the same time. From The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer,
McClatchy Studios, and I Heart Radio, this is Payback Part
one the Roach Motel. The women of the US soccer
(05:55):
team are world champions again. Team USA beat the Netherlands
too nil in Leon. It's probably one of those incredible
moments that you know, I've ever been a part of
with my teammates I've chills right now thinking about it.
U S women's national team striker Jessica McDonald, one of
twenty three players on that World Cup team. Are youably
(06:18):
the most dominant squad ever fielded by the most dominant
institution in all of soccer for people and a whole
another country, the whole stadium in France cheering for US
equal pay. We knew at that point that it was
a movement. It was a chant that echoed through the ages,
(06:38):
the culmination of so many different battles for gender equality.
It's hard to pick one specific starting point. And the
war between the sexes could become an ohm a god
if we don't get on with our revolution. Maybe it
was nine sixty three when author Betty for Dan is
widely credited with launching second wave feminism. But if we
do get on with it, and we restructures society to
make the quality really possible, that I think the war
(07:01):
between the sexes will And maybe it was two when
President Richard Nixon signed into law Title nine, preventing discrimination
on the basis of sex and schools, including in athletics.
Titleline is one of the most important pieces of legislation
of the twentieth century. On the anniversary of that legislation,
former tennis star Billy Jean King testified before Congress about
(07:23):
its impacts. The thirty seven words which comprise the language
of the amendment have proven powerful enough to change our
society and provide opportunities in the classroom and on the
athletic stage for countless young men and women. Third match
boys for Billy Jane here, King herself brought the turning
(07:44):
point to professional sports in her famous nineteen seventy three
tennis Battle of the Sexes. What more, I wonder sometimes
what Billy Jean King thinks of all this. This is
Michelle Acres. She was a founding member of the U
(08:08):
S women's national soccer team. I think there has been
a huge change, and I think there has been no
change all At the same time, Acres might be the
greatest women's soccer player of all time. During her fifteen
year international career, she won basically everything there is to win,
and after Acres retired in two thousand, SIFA named her
(08:29):
the women's player of the previous century. Since I retired,
I not night and day, but it is hugely different.
It seems like every profile ever written of her contains
the word grit. However, we're still talking about the same
damn shit In the early days of the women's national team.
(08:49):
Grit is exactly what they needed because no one, including
the US Soccer Federation that ran it, really had a
clue what the women's national team was. I think that
was so special about that team they played because they
loved it. Back in the U S women's national team
was held together with hand me downs. Just about everything
(09:09):
they had was left over from the men's national team,
including the jerseys they wore. Legend has it, the night
before their first tournament, the women stayed up through the
night sewing the letters USA onto those men's practice uniforms
so the women could wear them in their international competition,
literally like the old uniforms that the boys national team war.
Do you look at old pictures and the sleeves come
(09:31):
down past your elbows. It's a good look. Julie Foudy
joined the team in nine seven, when she was sixteen
years old. Anson Durance, who was the national team coach
at the time, ended up calling us in and saying, hey,
do you want to come and play at the tournament
in China. I was like a sophomore in high school,
and I was like, I'm not going to China. Who
(09:53):
is this guy Anson? And what is he saying about
this US team? I don't even know what this is.
And he says to me, do you know and I'm
asking you? I was like, not really, clearly, I don't.
He's like, I'm asking you to play for the United
States of America. I was like, so that's probably a
pretty big deal. He's like, yeah. He held its first
(10:13):
international tournament for women. Highlighted in this British documentary, teams
from twelve countries have gathered in what many people are
predicting to be one of the most exciting new developments
in soccer for many years. It's soccer, but with a difference.
For this is the first world football tournament for winning.
(10:36):
The US team was knocked out in the quarterfinals of
that tournament, but at the time, being there at all
was the only thing that mattered to Foudy. In her teammates,
there was ten dollars a day Berta and I remember
I got so excited because I got to bring home.
It was a navy blue windbreaker with red stripes and
it said USA, and I was like hot damn, I
(10:58):
just got you in stage act and ten dollars a day.
Who am I? This is amazing? From Tiani Stadium in
guang Chu, China, It's the Feedball Women's World Championship Finals
for the eminem sjob. The US was one of a
(11:21):
dozen women's teams invited back to China. The U S
women marched through the group stage and met Norway in
the championship match. Announcer Randy Han called the game, which
was tape delayed and broadcast on Sports Channel America. For
the first time in the history of American soccer, a
US team will play We're a world championship. Before kickoff,
US head coach Anson Dorn spoke with Han about what
(11:43):
a win there could mean. You know, we're doing this.
We're all sorts of reasons to show that, you know,
if we make the investment in American soccer, will play
off that we're not second class citizens in the world
game and we can play it. So we're all very
excited about this match. In that final, Acres scored twice
for the women's team, and the American women held on
to win by a score of two to one. We
(12:04):
wait simply put the whipple finally won a world good soccer.
In the span of just a few years, the US
women's national team had gone from hand me down jerseys
to a World Cup title. The year before thought he
had watched the US men's national team make their own
(12:25):
World Cup for the first time in forty years. There
was such excitement on the eve of that tournament. Then
they lost all three matches they played and were sent
home in a hurry. No question, the Men's World Cup
was arguably the most important sporting event on Earth, with
infinitely more visibility and prestige than the Women's World Cup.
But it's also true that there was already no question
(12:48):
which American team performed better on the world stage. We
started to realize there was a real disparity in our
treatment and our funding and our support, and so little
things started to fester. Despite the struggles of the men's team,
an even larger honor awaited them and the US Soccer
Federation hosting duties for the Men's World Cup. It was
(13:14):
the first and only time the men's tournament had been
played on American soil. In US soccer through everything it
had into elevating the men's game in preparation for it,
and then you see how with the ninety four World
Cup happening, how the men were treated and the attention
around them. You're like, wait a second, why are they
staying at five star hotels and we're at the roaching hotel? Right?
Why did they have seven massage therapists and we can't
(13:36):
even get a trainer And we're not asking for millions,
We're asking for simple things, and they're not moving. It
was kind of the mentality of just be grateful you
get to put on the red, white and blue and
sit down, sister. It was clear that order for the
women's game to move forward in America, those players would
(13:58):
have to send a message to us Walker and the
growing number of little girls who were beginning to look
up to them. Yeah. I think I spent the full,
like first four years scared to death. You have to
realize I joined the team when I was seventeen. I
(14:20):
still had a poster of the women's national team up
on my wall at home in my parents house. You
remember what year that poster was, Yeah, it was up Okay,
Oh I remember. Cindy Parlocone began training with the women's
national team at the time. She was a college student
at the University of North Carolina. Today, she coaches a
(14:43):
traveling soccer team and we met after one of her
games in Charlotte. Carlo Cone knows firsthand just how influential
that women's team can be for girls everywhere. I was
a really quiet, reserved kid, so I spent quite a
bit of time going whole, really a crop. I'm on
the field with all these people that are literally I
(15:03):
look at every night on the post in my or
a good sleep. When Parlocone was growing up, there was
no paid professional women's soccer league in the United States
for young girls who loved the game like Acres and
Faudi and Parlocne. There was one main pathway for elite
women soccer in America and one employer, the US Soccer Federation,
(15:24):
that controlled all the money. When I was in high school,
there was only like a few college scholarships for women's soccer.
There was no World Cup for women. There was an Olympics.
Here's Michelle Acres again. That was what really opened my
eyes to what opportunities were there for women, And it
was so disappointing and discouraging and as far as like
(15:47):
facilities and travel, and it was basically high school sports
you know, with maybe in a little college sport flavor
thrown in there. It was so hard to play in
the men's World Cup brought a dramatic boost to the
men's game in the United States, even as the men's
team lost in round six team one nil to Brazil
(16:10):
on the fourth of July. The women's team finished third
in their own World Cup the very next year, led
by forward Mia Hamm who was quickly becoming the face
of the team. The influence that we had, and by
we I mean mostly Nia had was good, but it
was pre social media. Now, their reach and their influence
(16:31):
is so much greater than I ever could have imagined
when I played. Harlo Cone remembers the players embraced their
roles as ambassadors for the game, even as the structural
inequality persisted, their advocacy for a grow in the game
and staying till the last autograph was signed carrying the
water coolers from practice. Yeah, I learned a lot about soccer,
(16:52):
but I learned a lot more about how to be
a good person and how to lead. Carlo Cone and
her leadership will become a larger piece of this story
a little later. But back when she joined the national team.
It was the veterans leading the way on gender equality.
The International Olympic Committee announced that women's soccer would make
(17:13):
its debut in the Games the following summer in Atlanta,
a men's tournament and a women's tournament, men's medals, women's medals.
The Olympics doesn't offer prize money, so it was up
to the US Olympic Committee and the US Soccer Federation
to choose any financial reward for the American players. One
piece of the contract US Soccer offered the women's team
(17:35):
financial bonuses only if you win gold. For the men,
bonuses for gold, silver, or bronze. We had hit a
wall in terms of just enough is enough, like come on,
because there was just a level of disrespect we thought
too and that what we're asking for is not a lot.
(17:56):
Around that same time, Julie Faudy sat in the audience
for a round table to discussion and heard a tennis
luminary talk about the barriers she had to overcome in
her own sport. The day it really changed was when
I met Billy Jane King in a function and I'm
listening to her and my jaw like hit the table.
Third match point for Billy Jane here, and I said
(18:17):
to her, holy sh it, that's our story. And I
don't know what to do. And she's like, boud Ay,
you have the power. You as players. Get them together
and sorted out. And my mind was just like it
was like this epiphany. It was just spinning, and I
got the team together and I was like, I was
just with Billy gen Kinge, we are not signing this,
(18:40):
and this is what we're gonna do. And that was
really the start to us saying no. That was the
start of our fight. Foudy, Acres and seven of the
other top players on the women's team all crossed out
those bonus clauses in their contracts and fax them back
to US Soccer. The nine players were immediately disinvited to
(19:01):
the team's Olympic training camp. Whether that was a holdout
or a lockout is sort of in the eye of
to the holder. We went on strike, and then we
had heavy hitters behind us in that Julie Jeane King's
wand and a few others stepped in and publicly on
our behalf. Here's Michelle Acres again. We wanted better hotel,
(19:22):
better travel. We were asking for the bare minimum of
giving us the chance to maximize our time together to
be the best in the world, and they said no. Largely,
players on the women's team were looking for an investment
from US Soccer that was equivalent to what the men got,
but in one crucial way, they were also looking for
(19:44):
something different. Benefits from mothers. One of our players was
a mom, so we needed a nanny for her when
we traveled, and we were a soccer called us greedys,
you know, And I still feel like that's kind of
an answer we women get today. Should be just grateful
for the opportunity and here take these little crowns and
then be happy for it and shut up. Voudy remembers
(20:07):
that US Soccer ultimately agreed to a contract that would
run through Players on the women's team would see their
salaries increase each of those years from about two thousand
dollars a month to three thousand fifty per month, and
for those Olympics there would be gold and silver bonuses
measured similarly to what the men's team was offered. It
(20:30):
was scary. We had some players who were like, I
don't know if I could do this, But what we
knew is that if we all did it together, they
would have to cave because they wouldn't have a team.
The nine holdouts soon joined the rest of the squad
in preparation for the upcoming games. That summer, the US
women's national team charged all the way to the Olympic
(20:50):
gold medal match. There, they faced China in front of
more than seventy six thousand fans in Atlanta, at the time,
the largest crowd ever to attend to women sporting it,
and the US was victorious there too, winning the game
two to one and bringing home the first women's Olympic
gold and women's soccer. The men's team didn't make it
(21:12):
out of the initial group stage. Acres remembers the toughest
competition the women's team faced wasn't on the field. US
Soccer caved and so you know, we got what we
asked for again. It was like we shouldn't have been
having to ask for it. Playing for the U s
national team made you poor. It hurt. The mother on
(21:34):
that women's team was Joy Fawcett. Her teammates call her
the original soccer Mom, and Fawcett's experience struggling motherhood and
elite soccer has informed virtually every contract negotiation the women's
team has had since, and the standards that player moms
like Jessica McDonald's you today. I've always wanted to be
a mom, but I love soccer and I didn't know
(21:55):
I wouldn't be playing this long. You'll hear from Fawcett
after the Fassi Gold next. By the time she retired,
Joy Fawcett had won two Olympic Golds and two World Cups.
(22:17):
But back Fawcett lead a foundation that more than a
dozen other national team players have followed since when she
became the first player mom in US soccer history. So
I went to Anson and was like, you know, I
wanna have kids, but I'm not going to just leave
my kids at home. I wanted to be a part
of their lives. And so I said, hey, is it okay?
(22:41):
Can I bring them along? And He's like, and he
just kind of laughed. He's like, you know, I know,
I can't talk you out of that. So sure, in
May of ninety four, Joy and her husband Walter, welcome
the first of their three daughters. And I don't even
think you talked to anybody like how that would work,
or what that would look like, or maybe it was like,
even believe me, I don't know. Two months later, the
(23:02):
US women's national team held a training camp in California.
Joy took the field. The hard thing was there was
no information whatsoever out there as to pregnant women train
or running or anything. But it was always on your
mind to get back quickly. And that's why I came
back so quickly within eight weeks, because I did not
(23:22):
want to lose my spot, you know, And that was
my biggest fear, is taking that time off, that I
would lose my spot. Faucet told me that early on,
motherhood presented some unique challenges on the field. I was
having issues breastfeeding because I didn't know anything about it.
When you run around a soccer viold, you have to
chest the ball, but it's not comfortable, so you feed
(23:44):
and then they deflate because they're empty, and then you
bind them with. All I had were socks, like my
soccer socks. I time around ea chest so they wouldn't overfill,
and so they would fill less and then it wouldn't
hurt so bad. Faucet not. He played her way back
into the starting lineup. She joined her eight teammates in
protesting the Olympic contract from US Soccer. That holdout was
(24:08):
the player's first move towards collective bargaining, and following the
Olympic gold Fawcett and her teammates got proactive about what
their next contracts should look like. Acres and Foudy took
the lead. So I got a cold call from Michelle Acres.
She said, I play on the U S women's national team.
We won the nine Olympics, and you've been recommended to
(24:30):
us because of your familiarity with representing teams as well
as individuals. John Lingle as a retired partner at the
Ballard spar law firm in Philadelphia. She asked me if
I talked to Julie. I said sure. Julie called me
and she told me what they thought their rights were
with the World Cup Committee and with US Soccer, and
(24:52):
told me that they thought their rights were not being recognized.
Langol had never represented female athletes before, but he sends
quickly that US Soccer was not meeting its obligations under
the Amateur Sports Act. That's the federal legislation from that
governs the U S Olympic Committee and all other national
governing bodies. What we thought we signed for the nine Olympics.
(25:15):
We sent the contract to another lawyer, John Langele. He's like,
what do you think you have And I was like, well,
we have these rights and we have this percentage and
he's like, no, you don't have any of that. None
of that is in this contract. It's like what that's
what we were told Foudy Again, we said to him
how much do you cost? We were still like ten
dollars a day, and so he goes, oh, no, no, no,
(25:37):
you won't have to pay for anything until I start
making money for you. Then you can pay me eventually.
So we hired him in I believe, and that's when
we started to really make progress on equitable treatment. But
he did all that work pro bono in the beginning
because he was so surprised by really how things were
(25:58):
when she first became a mom. False It says the
players contracts hadn't even considered motherhood as a possibility. Um,
you know, soccer was great in the sense that they
allowed me to do it. Unfortunately, it was hard in
the beginning when we didn't make any money, and too,
I had to pay for everything extras, so I paid
for the nanny to come and then I would pay
(26:19):
for my room, an extra room. That's just we felt
we deserved more, and you had to hold US Soccer accountable.
For the next few years, Langole negotiated with US Soccer
on a framework for the women's first collective bargaining agreement.
We built into the women's contracts if you're on the
national team that you were going to have daycare. We
(26:41):
created pregnancy protections so that while she was out she
would receive her percentage of the contract. And I understand
that percentage has now gone up, and when she came back,
she would be guaranteed her slot until the coach determined
that you wanted to go in another direction. Still, the
(27:02):
back and forth dragged on. By the summer of nine,
Langol hadn't yet hammered out a new contract between the
US players and US Soccer. But for the players, perhaps
that was best. R Stanford Stadium a World Cup ninety
four men for the men and the women take Shetter
stage today. Suddenly the eyes of the world were upon them,
as the US women hosted the World Cup. That tournament
(27:26):
culminated in a championship game that would redefine women soccer
in America. Can we write the contracts that shape it
to this day, the two very best teams in this
World Cup going at it and in at least one case,
redirect the life of an eleven year old girl in
a living room just a few hours east of where
that final would be played. This is the biggest game
(27:47):
and the lives of these USA players. We'll go behind
the scenes of that World Cup final after the break.
By the summer of the women's players were raising visibility
for the upcoming World Cup anyways they could. The year before,
we worked super hard to get the word out and
(28:09):
get the people in the stands and connect with the fans.
Joy Fawcett again. Everyone tried to put blocks up along
the way. No, you guys should play in little stadiums,
you know, just so it looks full. You guys can't
feel a big stadium. We're like, yes we can. And
on July the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, is packed
(28:30):
with over ninety thousand fans, still the largest crowd ever
for a woman's sporting event. The US and China play
nine scoreless minutes and thirty more minutes of scoreless sudden
death soccer. That's it. The winner I'll been's World Cup.
Almost the moment the penalty shot left Brandy Chastein's foot
(28:54):
the World Cup on the setch kick, she became an icon.
Chesting ripped her jersey from her body and fell to
her knees. Her teammates rushed to her and Foudy tackle
Chesting to the ground. As that tournament rolled on, just
seeing the interests grow and build and it became something
(29:16):
that was in the mainstream. Here's Julie Foudy again. I
still had a lot of women who come up to
me saying I was at that Rose Boar, I watched
that game and it inspired me to do this, and
that was really the dream. We had tremendous pride that
this was serving a lot of young girls in a
positive way and could inspire them to do great things
going forward. Years later, a statue of Chesting was unveiled
(29:41):
outside the Rose Bowl, a statue of a woman's soccer player.
The shockways from that World Cup final seemed almost unimaginable
from where the national team started. That was the mentality.
It wasn't for us. Michelle Acres again, it was you know,
our job, we felt to grow the game and to
cre ate something better for another group of players to
(30:04):
step into our role and keep this movement growing Off
the field, Lawyer John Langle helped the women organize a
private victory tour, independent of US Soccer oversight or financial involvement.
That independent tour paid each player roughly one thousand dollars,
giving them immediate financial security an even greater leverage for
(30:24):
their ongoing contract negotiations with the federation. Without negotiating a
new contract, the women's lives financially began to change. US
Soccer was furious that we did it threatened to sue US.
Lango remembers bringing Foudy and Mia Hamm to meet with
representatives of US Soccer. We met for two days in Washington,
d C. And US Soccer blinked. Foudy remembers it a
(30:49):
bit more colorfully. It got really heated, to the point
of Mia and myself basically telling the federation they could
go at themselves. And Me had turned to me and said,
I've had a great career, Jules, we just won a
World Cup. I'd be fine with retiring now. And I
was like, yeah, me too. I mean, this has been
a good ride for us. And basically we finally had
(31:13):
a little bit of leverage to get things done. In
early two thousand, the players signed a deal that guaranteed
them more income, plus bonuses for making the Olympic team,
as well as bonuses for winning tournaments. In absolute dollars,
the deal was in the ballpark of what the US
men earned from the federation, but the structure of the
women's contract was dramatically different, a fact that would loom
(31:36):
large and future negotiations. In particular, the US men earned
most of their soccer income from their various professional club
teams throughout the year. For them, playing for the US
team was just gravy, so the men's contract with federation
only paid them by the game when they played with
the national team. But in two thousand, there was no
ongoing soccer league for women and no guaranteed money for
(31:59):
them outside of the team, so the women negotiated a
year round salaries from the federation. We had a goal
when we started negotiating to give them guaranteed salaries so
that women didn't have to have second third jobs and
that a core of women, let's call it, would be
(32:20):
paid a sufficient amount of money benefits so that they
could be full time soccer players. That was the goal
of the two thousand negotiations. US Soccer would spearhead the
formation of a new women's professional soccer league to begin
play in two thousand one. With that, a playing field
(32:41):
was set by legends of the game. We're impacting young
women and girls all over the world, including a young
girl from Glendale, Arizona, who was finding her passion for
the game. They all loved Definite again and on part
two of Payback, I use sport as this coping mechanism
(33:05):
because I hated being home. It's pretty safe area. Now,
it's pretty cool not to hit no gunshots. She happened
to be at soccer field one day and she was
just smashing balls into the net. From that moment, I
was like, nobody will ever be able to stop this
girl and anything she does athletically. Thank god for sport.
Thank god I had that ability to play. That was
(33:28):
my escape, that was all I had. I'm Alexandrea. Payback
is a production of The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer,
McClatchy Studios, and I Heeart Radio. It's produced by Cotta Stevens,
Casey Top, Julia Wall, and Davin Coburn. The executive producer
for iHeart Radio is Sean ty Toone. For lots more
(33:48):
on this story and to support journalism like this, visit
Charlotte observer dot com slash payback or news observer dot
com slash payback. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Long Shot. I'm executive producer Davin Coburn. This
is our second season of audio documentaries at the intersection
of sports and social change, reported by McClatchy newsrooms around
the country. This season, we're heading to North Carolina, the
heart of women's soccer in America and the place where
former U S national team striker Jessica McDonald became one
(00:21):
of the most remarkable figures in sports. This podcast began
as a story about the national team's fight for equal pay,
McDonald's role in that legal battle and their groundbreaking settlement
with the US Soccer Federation, But over more than a
year of reporting, this story became an investigation into structural
inequities rampant in the women's game, and a look at
(00:42):
how McDonald's journey ties together so many of those threads.
The lead reporter for this season is Alexandreev. She's the
head soccer writer at The Charlotte Observer, and she'll be
your host for all ten episodes. A listener note this
podcast contains adult language and adult themes, including harassment and
alleged abuse against women, including from one of McDonald's former coaches.
(01:06):
Allegations will address in a later episode and now from
The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News An Observer, McClatchy Studios, and
I Heart Radio, This is Long Shot Season two payback.
It's the minute of the Women's World Cup Final in Leon, France.
(01:30):
The US women's national team leaves the Netherlands one zero
when midfielder Rose Lavell cuts to her left at the
top of the penalty box and carves her name in
American soccer history. Looking with the two goal lead and
yet another World Cup title in their sites, nothing was
going to stop the American women That's it us, hands
(01:54):
it hold hold. Some of the players on the team
have become household names Megan Rapino, come Back the Neck,
Alex Morgan, Scot. But for many of those players and
their fans, what that us when meant off the field
(02:17):
could prove to be more important than what it meant
on it Because the players made snow angels and sparkling confetti.
Ark Olympique Leone erupted in Chance, fans around the world
rallying behind not just a team, but a movement. The
US women's soccer teams behind the scenes battle with its
(02:38):
own parent federation exploding on a global stage. This morning,
negotiations breaking down between women Soccer and the US Soccer
Federation over the fight. The federation was never willing to
offer the women equal pay. The numbers were always worse
for the women, so in order to get equality, they
had it performed twice as well. This is not just
(02:59):
about money. This is about generations of discrimination against women
on the basis of their gender. I'm Alexandre of lead
soccer writer for The Charlotte Observer, and for the past
year I've been reporting on a women's game at a
crossroads and maybe in crisis. Women's soccer is turned upside
down after a shocking report that a prominent male coach
(03:22):
is accused of coercing players into having sex. This podcast
began as an investigation into the US players fight for
equal pay, an issue with far more nuance than a tweet.
The women were empowered to negotiate their own contract and
the contract that they wanted. But what became apparent is
that there's so much more to this story, and reporting
(03:43):
that began about equal pay quickly became a wide ranging
investigation into how so many different components of social inequity
coalesce and a women's game long struggling for legitimacy. I
think there has been a huge change, and I think
there has been no change. We're still talking about the
same damn shit. Over the past year, I spoke with
current players across all levels of major women's soccer in
(04:04):
the US and legends from the game's past. There was
just a level of disrespect. We thought, what we're asking
for is not a lot. I spoke with players, families
and friends, and I sat down for a rare one
on one conversation with the president of the US Soccer
Federation responsible for settling the player's groundbreaking lawsuit. Has the
federation been perfect? Absolutely not. But I've done everything to
(04:28):
address the things that I can address. I discovered along
the way that women's soccer, there's no story quite like
Jessica McDonald's. Jessica McDonald making her first start for the
US women's national team. How about that the striker from
that twenty nineteen World Cup team who might not be
a household name, but whose story you'll never forget ran
(04:50):
away from home when I was seventeen years old. I
wasn't just scared. I was scared for my life. Jessica,
She's had some very difficult moments in her life, but
there's something inside the great athlete that is why they're great.
Whose personal battle provides a shocking perspective as she tells
her story for the first time, Thank God for sports.
That was my escape. And then I find out I'm
pregnant with my son, giving the national team's battle a
(05:13):
new light. I've always been the only mom on many
teams I played for. I could have a bad game
and my child would get blamed. Building her own legacy
while standing alongside her teammates as they set the stage
for generations to come. Imagine women in workforces everywhere having
to fight less to be valued the same, especially for
(05:34):
the little girls who wouldn't be in our shoes. One day.
You could totally be badass and be a mom at
the same time. From The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer,
McClatchy Studios, and I Heart Radio, this is Payback Part
one the Roach Motel. The women of the US soccer
(05:55):
team are world champions again. Team USA beat the Netherlands
too nil in Leon. It's probably one of those incredible
moments that you know, I've ever been a part of
with my teammates I've chills right now thinking about it.
U S women's national team striker Jessica McDonald, one of
twenty three players on that World Cup team. Are youably
(06:18):
the most dominant squad ever fielded by the most dominant
institution in all of soccer for people and a whole
another country, the whole stadium in France cheering for US
equal pay. We knew at that point that it was
a movement. It was a chant that echoed through the ages,
(06:38):
the culmination of so many different battles for gender equality.
It's hard to pick one specific starting point. And the
war between the sexes could become an ohm a god
if we don't get on with our revolution. Maybe it
was nine sixty three when author Betty for Dan is
widely credited with launching second wave feminism. But if we
do get on with it, and we restructures society to
make the quality really possible, that I think the war
(07:01):
between the sexes will And maybe it was two when
President Richard Nixon signed into law Title nine, preventing discrimination
on the basis of sex and schools, including in athletics.
Titleline is one of the most important pieces of legislation
of the twentieth century. On the anniversary of that legislation,
former tennis star Billy Jean King testified before Congress about
(07:23):
its impacts. The thirty seven words which comprise the language
of the amendment have proven powerful enough to change our
society and provide opportunities in the classroom and on the
athletic stage for countless young men and women. Third match
boys for Billy Jane here, King herself brought the turning
(07:44):
point to professional sports in her famous nineteen seventy three
tennis Battle of the Sexes. What more, I wonder sometimes
what Billy Jean King thinks of all this. This is
Michelle Acres. She was a founding member of the U
(08:08):
S women's national soccer team. I think there has been
a huge change, and I think there has been no
change all At the same time, Acres might be the
greatest women's soccer player of all time. During her fifteen
year international career, she won basically everything there is to win,
and after Acres retired in two thousand, SIFA named her
(08:29):
the women's player of the previous century. Since I retired,
I not night and day, but it is hugely different.
It seems like every profile ever written of her contains
the word grit. However, we're still talking about the same
damn shit In the early days of the women's national team.
(08:49):
Grit is exactly what they needed because no one, including
the US Soccer Federation that ran it, really had a
clue what the women's national team was. I think that
was so special about that team they played because they
loved it. Back in the U S women's national team
was held together with hand me downs. Just about everything
(09:09):
they had was left over from the men's national team,
including the jerseys they wore. Legend has it, the night
before their first tournament, the women stayed up through the
night sewing the letters USA onto those men's practice uniforms
so the women could wear them in their international competition,
literally like the old uniforms that the boys national team war.
Do you look at old pictures and the sleeves come
(09:31):
down past your elbows. It's a good look. Julie Foudy
joined the team in nine seven, when she was sixteen
years old. Anson Durance, who was the national team coach
at the time, ended up calling us in and saying, hey,
do you want to come and play at the tournament
in China. I was like a sophomore in high school,
and I was like, I'm not going to China. Who
(09:53):
is this guy Anson? And what is he saying about
this US team? I don't even know what this is.
And he says to me, do you know and I'm
asking you? I was like, not really, clearly, I don't.
He's like, I'm asking you to play for the United
States of America. I was like, so that's probably a
pretty big deal. He's like, yeah. He held its first
(10:13):
international tournament for women. Highlighted in this British documentary, teams
from twelve countries have gathered in what many people are
predicting to be one of the most exciting new developments
in soccer for many years. It's soccer, but with a difference.
For this is the first world football tournament for winning.
(10:36):
The US team was knocked out in the quarterfinals of
that tournament, but at the time, being there at all
was the only thing that mattered to Foudy. In her teammates,
there was ten dollars a day Berta and I remember
I got so excited because I got to bring home.
It was a navy blue windbreaker with red stripes and
it said USA, and I was like hot damn, I
(10:58):
just got you in stage act and ten dollars a day.
Who am I? This is amazing? From Tiani Stadium in
guang Chu, China, It's the Feedball Women's World Championship Finals
for the eminem sjob. The US was one of a
(11:21):
dozen women's teams invited back to China. The U S
women marched through the group stage and met Norway in
the championship match. Announcer Randy Han called the game, which
was tape delayed and broadcast on Sports Channel America. For
the first time in the history of American soccer, a
US team will play We're a world championship. Before kickoff,
US head coach Anson Dorn spoke with Han about what
(11:43):
a win there could mean. You know, we're doing this.
We're all sorts of reasons to show that, you know,
if we make the investment in American soccer, will play
off that we're not second class citizens in the world
game and we can play it. So we're all very
excited about this match. In that final, Acres scored twice
for the women's team, and the American women held on
to win by a score of two to one. We
(12:04):
wait simply put the whipple finally won a world good soccer.
In the span of just a few years, the US
women's national team had gone from hand me down jerseys
to a World Cup title. The year before thought he
had watched the US men's national team make their own
(12:25):
World Cup for the first time in forty years. There
was such excitement on the eve of that tournament. Then
they lost all three matches they played and were sent
home in a hurry. No question, the Men's World Cup
was arguably the most important sporting event on Earth, with
infinitely more visibility and prestige than the Women's World Cup.
But it's also true that there was already no question
(12:48):
which American team performed better on the world stage. We
started to realize there was a real disparity in our
treatment and our funding and our support, and so little
things started to fester. Despite the struggles of the men's team,
an even larger honor awaited them and the US Soccer
Federation hosting duties for the Men's World Cup. It was
(13:14):
the first and only time the men's tournament had been
played on American soil. In US soccer through everything it
had into elevating the men's game in preparation for it,
and then you see how with the ninety four World
Cup happening, how the men were treated and the attention
around them. You're like, wait a second, why are they
staying at five star hotels and we're at the roaching hotel? Right?
Why did they have seven massage therapists and we can't
(13:36):
even get a trainer And we're not asking for millions,
We're asking for simple things, and they're not moving. It
was kind of the mentality of just be grateful you
get to put on the red, white and blue and
sit down, sister. It was clear that order for the
women's game to move forward in America, those players would
(13:58):
have to send a message to us Walker and the
growing number of little girls who were beginning to look
up to them. Yeah. I think I spent the full,
like first four years scared to death. You have to
realize I joined the team when I was seventeen. I
(14:20):
still had a poster of the women's national team up
on my wall at home in my parents house. You
remember what year that poster was, Yeah, it was up Okay,
Oh I remember. Cindy Parlocone began training with the women's
national team at the time. She was a college student
at the University of North Carolina. Today, she coaches a
(14:43):
traveling soccer team and we met after one of her
games in Charlotte. Carlo Cone knows firsthand just how influential
that women's team can be for girls everywhere. I was
a really quiet, reserved kid, so I spent quite a
bit of time going whole, really a crop. I'm on
the field with all these people that are literally I
(15:03):
look at every night on the post in my or
a good sleep. When Parlocone was growing up, there was
no paid professional women's soccer league in the United States
for young girls who loved the game like Acres and
Faudi and Parlocne. There was one main pathway for elite
women soccer in America and one employer, the US Soccer Federation,
(15:24):
that controlled all the money. When I was in high school,
there was only like a few college scholarships for women's soccer.
There was no World Cup for women. There was an Olympics.
Here's Michelle Acres again. That was what really opened my
eyes to what opportunities were there for women, And it
was so disappointing and discouraging and as far as like
(15:47):
facilities and travel, and it was basically high school sports
you know, with maybe in a little college sport flavor
thrown in there. It was so hard to play in
the men's World Cup brought a dramatic boost to the
men's game in the United States, even as the men's
team lost in round six team one nil to Brazil
(16:10):
on the fourth of July. The women's team finished third
in their own World Cup the very next year, led
by forward Mia Hamm who was quickly becoming the face
of the team. The influence that we had, and by
we I mean mostly Nia had was good, but it
was pre social media. Now, their reach and their influence
(16:31):
is so much greater than I ever could have imagined
when I played. Harlo Cone remembers the players embraced their
roles as ambassadors for the game, even as the structural
inequality persisted, their advocacy for a grow in the game
and staying till the last autograph was signed carrying the
water coolers from practice. Yeah, I learned a lot about soccer,
(16:52):
but I learned a lot more about how to be
a good person and how to lead. Carlo Cone and
her leadership will become a larger piece of this story
a little later. But back when she joined the national team.
It was the veterans leading the way on gender equality.
The International Olympic Committee announced that women's soccer would make
(17:13):
its debut in the Games the following summer in Atlanta,
a men's tournament and a women's tournament, men's medals, women's medals.
The Olympics doesn't offer prize money, so it was up
to the US Olympic Committee and the US Soccer Federation
to choose any financial reward for the American players. One
piece of the contract US Soccer offered the women's team
(17:35):
financial bonuses only if you win gold. For the men,
bonuses for gold, silver, or bronze. We had hit a
wall in terms of just enough is enough, like come on,
because there was just a level of disrespect we thought
too and that what we're asking for is not a lot.
(17:56):
Around that same time, Julie Faudy sat in the audience
for a round table to discussion and heard a tennis
luminary talk about the barriers she had to overcome in
her own sport. The day it really changed was when
I met Billy Jane King in a function and I'm
listening to her and my jaw like hit the table.
Third match point for Billy Jane here, and I said
(18:17):
to her, holy sh it, that's our story. And I
don't know what to do. And she's like, boud Ay,
you have the power. You as players. Get them together
and sorted out. And my mind was just like it
was like this epiphany. It was just spinning, and I
got the team together and I was like, I was
just with Billy gen Kinge, we are not signing this,
(18:40):
and this is what we're gonna do. And that was
really the start to us saying no. That was the
start of our fight. Foudy, Acres and seven of the
other top players on the women's team all crossed out
those bonus clauses in their contracts and fax them back
to US Soccer. The nine players were immediately disinvited to
(19:01):
the team's Olympic training camp. Whether that was a holdout
or a lockout is sort of in the eye of
to the holder. We went on strike, and then we
had heavy hitters behind us in that Julie Jeane King's
wand and a few others stepped in and publicly on
our behalf. Here's Michelle Acres again. We wanted better hotel,
(19:22):
better travel. We were asking for the bare minimum of
giving us the chance to maximize our time together to
be the best in the world, and they said no. Largely,
players on the women's team were looking for an investment
from US Soccer that was equivalent to what the men got,
but in one crucial way, they were also looking for
(19:44):
something different. Benefits from mothers. One of our players was
a mom, so we needed a nanny for her when
we traveled, and we were a soccer called us greedys,
you know, And I still feel like that's kind of
an answer we women get today. Should be just grateful
for the opportunity and here take these little crowns and
then be happy for it and shut up. Voudy remembers
(20:07):
that US Soccer ultimately agreed to a contract that would
run through Players on the women's team would see their
salaries increase each of those years from about two thousand
dollars a month to three thousand fifty per month, and
for those Olympics there would be gold and silver bonuses
measured similarly to what the men's team was offered. It
(20:30):
was scary. We had some players who were like, I
don't know if I could do this, But what we
knew is that if we all did it together, they
would have to cave because they wouldn't have a team.
The nine holdouts soon joined the rest of the squad
in preparation for the upcoming games. That summer, the US
women's national team charged all the way to the Olympic
(20:50):
gold medal match. There, they faced China in front of
more than seventy six thousand fans in Atlanta, at the time,
the largest crowd ever to attend to women sporting it,
and the US was victorious there too, winning the game
two to one and bringing home the first women's Olympic
gold and women's soccer. The men's team didn't make it
(21:12):
out of the initial group stage. Acres remembers the toughest
competition the women's team faced wasn't on the field. US
Soccer caved and so you know, we got what we
asked for again. It was like we shouldn't have been
having to ask for it. Playing for the U s
national team made you poor. It hurt. The mother on
(21:34):
that women's team was Joy Fawcett. Her teammates call her
the original soccer Mom, and Fawcett's experience struggling motherhood and
elite soccer has informed virtually every contract negotiation the women's
team has had since, and the standards that player moms
like Jessica McDonald's you today. I've always wanted to be
a mom, but I love soccer and I didn't know
(21:55):
I wouldn't be playing this long. You'll hear from Fawcett
after the Fassi Gold next. By the time she retired,
Joy Fawcett had won two Olympic Golds and two World Cups.
(22:17):
But back Fawcett lead a foundation that more than a
dozen other national team players have followed since when she
became the first player mom in US soccer history. So
I went to Anson and was like, you know, I
wanna have kids, but I'm not going to just leave
my kids at home. I wanted to be a part
of their lives. And so I said, hey, is it okay?
(22:41):
Can I bring them along? And He's like, and he
just kind of laughed. He's like, you know, I know,
I can't talk you out of that. So sure, in
May of ninety four, Joy and her husband Walter, welcome
the first of their three daughters. And I don't even
think you talked to anybody like how that would work,
or what that would look like, or maybe it was like,
even believe me, I don't know. Two months later, the
(23:02):
US women's national team held a training camp in California.
Joy took the field. The hard thing was there was
no information whatsoever out there as to pregnant women train
or running or anything. But it was always on your
mind to get back quickly. And that's why I came
back so quickly within eight weeks, because I did not
(23:22):
want to lose my spot, you know, And that was
my biggest fear, is taking that time off, that I
would lose my spot. Faucet told me that early on,
motherhood presented some unique challenges on the field. I was
having issues breastfeeding because I didn't know anything about it.
When you run around a soccer viold, you have to
chest the ball, but it's not comfortable, so you feed
(23:44):
and then they deflate because they're empty, and then you
bind them with. All I had were socks, like my
soccer socks. I time around ea chest so they wouldn't overfill,
and so they would fill less and then it wouldn't
hurt so bad. Faucet not. He played her way back
into the starting lineup. She joined her eight teammates in
protesting the Olympic contract from US Soccer. That holdout was
(24:08):
the player's first move towards collective bargaining, and following the
Olympic gold Fawcett and her teammates got proactive about what
their next contracts should look like. Acres and Foudy took
the lead. So I got a cold call from Michelle Acres.
She said, I play on the U S women's national team.
We won the nine Olympics, and you've been recommended to
(24:30):
us because of your familiarity with representing teams as well
as individuals. John Lingle as a retired partner at the
Ballard spar law firm in Philadelphia. She asked me if
I talked to Julie. I said sure. Julie called me
and she told me what they thought their rights were
with the World Cup Committee and with US Soccer, and
(24:52):
told me that they thought their rights were not being recognized.
Langol had never represented female athletes before, but he sends
quickly that US Soccer was not meeting its obligations under
the Amateur Sports Act. That's the federal legislation from that
governs the U S Olympic Committee and all other national
governing bodies. What we thought we signed for the nine Olympics.
(25:15):
We sent the contract to another lawyer, John Langele. He's like,
what do you think you have And I was like, well,
we have these rights and we have this percentage and
he's like, no, you don't have any of that. None
of that is in this contract. It's like what that's
what we were told Foudy Again, we said to him
how much do you cost? We were still like ten
dollars a day, and so he goes, oh, no, no, no,
(25:37):
you won't have to pay for anything until I start
making money for you. Then you can pay me eventually.
So we hired him in I believe, and that's when
we started to really make progress on equitable treatment. But
he did all that work pro bono in the beginning
because he was so surprised by really how things were
(25:58):
when she first became a mom. False It says the
players contracts hadn't even considered motherhood as a possibility. Um,
you know, soccer was great in the sense that they
allowed me to do it. Unfortunately, it was hard in
the beginning when we didn't make any money, and too,
I had to pay for everything extras, so I paid
for the nanny to come and then I would pay
(26:19):
for my room, an extra room. That's just we felt
we deserved more, and you had to hold US Soccer accountable.
For the next few years, Langole negotiated with US Soccer
on a framework for the women's first collective bargaining agreement.
We built into the women's contracts if you're on the
national team that you were going to have daycare. We
(26:41):
created pregnancy protections so that while she was out she
would receive her percentage of the contract. And I understand
that percentage has now gone up, and when she came back,
she would be guaranteed her slot until the coach determined
that you wanted to go in another direction. Still, the
(27:02):
back and forth dragged on. By the summer of nine,
Langol hadn't yet hammered out a new contract between the
US players and US Soccer. But for the players, perhaps
that was best. R Stanford Stadium a World Cup ninety
four men for the men and the women take Shetter
stage today. Suddenly the eyes of the world were upon them,
as the US women hosted the World Cup. That tournament
(27:26):
culminated in a championship game that would redefine women soccer
in America. Can we write the contracts that shape it
to this day, the two very best teams in this
World Cup going at it and in at least one case,
redirect the life of an eleven year old girl in
a living room just a few hours east of where
that final would be played. This is the biggest game
(27:47):
and the lives of these USA players. We'll go behind
the scenes of that World Cup final after the break.
By the summer of the women's players were raising visibility
for the upcoming World Cup anyways they could. The year before,
we worked super hard to get the word out and
(28:09):
get the people in the stands and connect with the fans.
Joy Fawcett again. Everyone tried to put blocks up along
the way. No, you guys should play in little stadiums,
you know, just so it looks full. You guys can't
feel a big stadium. We're like, yes we can. And
on July the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, is packed
(28:30):
with over ninety thousand fans, still the largest crowd ever
for a woman's sporting event. The US and China play
nine scoreless minutes and thirty more minutes of scoreless sudden
death soccer. That's it. The winner I'll been's World Cup.
Almost the moment the penalty shot left Brandy Chastein's foot
(28:54):
the World Cup on the setch kick, she became an icon.
Chesting ripped her jersey from her body and fell to
her knees. Her teammates rushed to her and Foudy tackle
Chesting to the ground. As that tournament rolled on, just
seeing the interests grow and build and it became something
(29:16):
that was in the mainstream. Here's Julie Foudy again. I
still had a lot of women who come up to
me saying I was at that Rose Boar, I watched
that game and it inspired me to do this, and
that was really the dream. We had tremendous pride that
this was serving a lot of young girls in a
positive way and could inspire them to do great things
going forward. Years later, a statue of Chesting was unveiled
(29:41):
outside the Rose Bowl, a statue of a woman's soccer player.
The shockways from that World Cup final seemed almost unimaginable
from where the national team started. That was the mentality.
It wasn't for us. Michelle Acres again, it was you know,
our job, we felt to grow the game and to
cre ate something better for another group of players to
(30:04):
step into our role and keep this movement growing Off
the field, Lawyer John Langle helped the women organize a
private victory tour, independent of US Soccer oversight or financial involvement.
That independent tour paid each player roughly one thousand dollars,
giving them immediate financial security an even greater leverage for
(30:24):
their ongoing contract negotiations with the federation. Without negotiating a
new contract, the women's lives financially began to change. US
Soccer was furious that we did it threatened to sue US.
Lango remembers bringing Foudy and Mia Hamm to meet with
representatives of US Soccer. We met for two days in Washington,
d C. And US Soccer blinked. Foudy remembers it a
(30:49):
bit more colorfully. It got really heated, to the point
of Mia and myself basically telling the federation they could
go at themselves. And Me had turned to me and said,
I've had a great career, Jules, we just won a
World Cup. I'd be fine with retiring now. And I
was like, yeah, me too. I mean, this has been
a good ride for us. And basically we finally had
(31:13):
a little bit of leverage to get things done. In
early two thousand, the players signed a deal that guaranteed
them more income, plus bonuses for making the Olympic team,
as well as bonuses for winning tournaments. In absolute dollars,
the deal was in the ballpark of what the US
men earned from the federation, but the structure of the
women's contract was dramatically different, a fact that would loom
(31:36):
large and future negotiations. In particular, the US men earned
most of their soccer income from their various professional club
teams throughout the year. For them, playing for the US
team was just gravy, so the men's contract with federation
only paid them by the game when they played with
the national team. But in two thousand, there was no
ongoing soccer league for women and no guaranteed money for
(31:59):
them outside of the team, so the women negotiated a
year round salaries from the federation. We had a goal
when we started negotiating to give them guaranteed salaries so
that women didn't have to have second third jobs and
that a core of women, let's call it, would be
(32:20):
paid a sufficient amount of money benefits so that they
could be full time soccer players. That was the goal
of the two thousand negotiations. US Soccer would spearhead the
formation of a new women's professional soccer league to begin
play in two thousand one. With that, a playing field
(32:41):
was set by legends of the game. We're impacting young
women and girls all over the world, including a young
girl from Glendale, Arizona, who was finding her passion for
the game. They all loved Definite again and on part
two of Payback, I use sport as this coping mechanism
(33:05):
because I hated being home. It's pretty safe area. Now,
it's pretty cool not to hit no gunshots. She happened
to be at soccer field one day and she was
just smashing balls into the net. From that moment, I
was like, nobody will ever be able to stop this
girl and anything she does athletically. Thank god for sport.
Thank god I had that ability to play. That was
(33:28):
my escape, that was all I had. I'm Alexandrea. Payback
is a production of The Charlotte Observer, Raleigh News and Observer,
McClatchy Studios, and I Heeart Radio. It's produced by Cotta Stevens,
Casey Top, Julia Wall, and Davin Coburn. The executive producer
for iHeart Radio is Sean ty Toone. For lots more
(33:48):
on this story and to support journalism like this, visit
Charlotte observer dot com slash payback or news observer dot
com slash payback. And for more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H
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