Spain's Alexia Putellas receives the Best FIFA Women's player award from FIFA president Gianni Infantino during the ceremony of the Best FIFA Football Awards in Paris, France, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
Women athletes made some strides in terms of pay equity after FIFA announced that this year's World Cup prize money will exceed $150 million — but it still lags far behind the men's tournament.
The raise marks a 300 percent increase from the previous tourney in 2019 when the winners took home just $30 million. It's also 10 times the amount paid out in 2015.
Still, the pay gap between men and women soccer players remains wide. In last year's men's World Cup in Qatar, the prize stood at $440 million. FIFA stated that it is aiming to have pay parity by 2027.
"FIFA is stepping up not just with words but with actions. Unfortunately this is not the case of everyone across the industry," said FIFA President Gianni Infantino, noting the continued discrepancy in payments from broadcasting and advertising partners, according to Barron's. "Offer us 20 percent less, or 50 percent less, but not 100 percent less. Women deserve much, much more than that, and we are here to fight for them and with them, but we need to fight together."
The announcement came just weeks after the U.S. Soccer Federation settled a lawsuit filed by the U.S. women's national team for $24 million on the basis of pay inequity. Last year the organization also established a collective bargaining process involving both the men's and women's national teams to pool and equally divide prize money.
Five women have been named to the U.S. short-track speedskating team for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Among those five, there was only one returning Olympian of the group, Maame Biney, who competed in the 2018 Olympics as the first African-American woman to ever qualify for the U.S. short-track speedskating team. JD sat down with Biney to discuss how she's preparing for the games.
Eric Mitchell, Sports Analyst and President & CEO of LifeFlip Media, breaks down the updated rules around testing in the NFL and outlines how vaccinated players are impacted by new return-to-play guidelines.
Carlo and Baker kick off the weirdest week of the year with all the news you missed over the holiday weekend, including calls for the CDC to shorten its isolation window as Omicron sweeps through the country.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be without some of hockey's biggest players. The NHL and the NHL Player's Association have agreed to not participate in the men's hockey tournament at the Games in Beijing next year. The league has been forced to postpone some games because of a rise in COVID-19 cases among players. Washington Post sports reporter Samantha Pell joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss what this could mean for the Winter Olympics and the sport of hockey.
Former professional tennis player Patrick McEnroe joined Cheddar to discuss the troubling issues surrounding player Peng Shuai who appeared potentially to have been silenced following her social media post accusing former Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. Shuai's subsequent disappearance, reappearance, and apparent retraction of the accusation in an interview only added to worries. "When this happened, all of us in the tennis community were very concerned. And, by the way, another thing Peng said in this interview was that she doesn't speak very good English," McEnroe noted. "Well I can assure you, she speaks darn good English, 'cause I spoke to her on many occasions over the last 15 years."
Carlo and Baker cover the heartening news on the Covid front ahead of the holiday, plus President Biden punting student loan repayments again, a new space telescope and Love, Hate, Ate: Christmas Eve Eve Edition!
The boys discuss President Biden's plans to send out free rapid tests as the testing supply chain starts to buckle ahead of the holidays. Also, why aren't Americans having more babies, and The Matrix returns.
Cam Rogers, host of 'Lock It In with Cam Rogers,' and betting analyst at the Bleav Podcast Network, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he breaks down how sportsbooks - and bettors - need to adapt to changes to sporting events due to the spread of the Omicron variant.