The World Cup pay gap: What the U.S. and Japan didn’t win in the women’s soccer final

By Mary Pilon, published on POLITICO, 7/6/2015.   This is a Great American Sports Town and here it was that I watched the Women’s World Cup, taking place 3,500 kilometers away in Vancouver, Canada. By kickoff Sunday night, hundreds of soccer fans had poured in to Lincoln Park to gather around a mammoth screen to watch the U.S. team face off against Japan. Under a cinematic sunset, they banged drums, blew horns, waved American flags which were on hand from July 4 celebrations the night before. They hooted from the beer garden and leapt on top of picnic blankets during each one of the four American goals in the first half of the game, making for a scoreboard that felt at times more like a March Madness basketball game than professional soccer. The Women’s World Cup has remained a feel-good event in spite of this tournament’s off-field distractions. Those included, but were not limited to: the domestic violence allegations against U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo and how U.S. Soccer handled them; the peril (and humiliation) of competing on artificial turf; and the searing indictments from U.S. federal investigators against FIFA, soccer’s governing body. But to some degree, those are all distractions from a far greater problem facing the Women’s World Cup: the players’ paychecks. And after a sizzling performance by the U.S. team, which trounced Japan 5-2, there is no better time than now to talk about money.   To read the full article, visit: http://www.politico.eu/article/world-cup-women-pay-gap-gender-equality/