U.S. Soccer throws a long-awaited party for its equal-pay collective bargaining deals

WASHINGTON — For an occasion decades in the making, the moment only lasted a few minutes. But the ceremonial signing of the U.S. Soccer Federation’s new equal-pay collective bargaining agreements with its men’s and women’s players’ unions on Tuesday will resonate for a long time to come.

After the women’s team’s 2-1 win over Nigeria, U.S. Soccer president Cindy Cone, men’s union executive director Mark Levinstein, and women’s union executive director Becca Roux joined Crystal Dunn and Sam Mewis at a table on the field and put pen to historic paper.

“We didn’t want to just sign it in some room that no one saw, or email it,” Cone said. “We wanted to make an event of it and celebrate it, because I think everyone is proud of this, as they should be.”

Officially, the CBAs have already been in effect for a few months. But along with the desire to throw a party, Tuesday’s game was the U.S. women’s team’s first game in the nation’s capital in five years, and the first for either senior national team here in three. So there was some extra luster in the air, and some political power from up South Capitol Street.

“This team, and the women that came before this team, are champions of workers’ rights and equal pay for women,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said. “These athletes have been an inspiration to other athletes all over the world … Now you’re an inspiration to all working people.”

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Walsh, Cone, and the rest were joined by past and present players; the chiefs of the NFL, MLB, MLS and NWSL players’ unions; AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler; and members of Congress from both parties.

“A group of women athletes at the pinnacle of their success had the audacity to say ‘We deserve equal pay for our success,’” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) said.

There was even a moment of bipartisanship with Cantwell and Sen. Shelly Moore Capito (R., W. Va.).

“I’m a Democrat from Washington [state], she’s a Republican from West Virginia,” Cantwell said, “but we are going to use the power of this moment to get national legislation passed so that every young girl in every sport knows that we will have equal pay when it comes to sports in the United States of America.”

Former U.S. women’s team star Julie Foudy, who hosted the ceremony after calling the game for ESPN, has been at the front of the charge since her playing heyday. The 1999 World Cup champions were the first team to show that women’s soccer could be popular and profitable if given the chance, but for many years, the sport’s power brokers didn’t give it.

“We as players saw the potential, and you had to convince them of the potential — they couldn’t see it,” Foudy said. “We’d say, ‘Whether you love or hate women’s soccer doesn’t matter to me. The fact is, you’re leaving piles of cash on the table because you’re not tapping into this underutilized market.’”

» READ MORE: U.S. men’s and women’s soccer players celebrate equal pay and labor peace

Tennis legend Billie Jean King, who pushed Foudy to help launch the women’s national team union back in the day, offered a salute in a video on the big screen.

“They raised their game on the pitch and used their voice off it,” King said. “Today is a significant, inspiring moment for all women — for women in sports, and all athletes globally — to show up and speak up, and never give up.”

Foudy credited Cone, a former teammate, for pushing U.S. Soccer and the current players to an accord.

“You have a past player who’s lived the fight as a woman, and understands the innate frustration that I think a lot of the Federation didn’t understand for a very long time,” Foudy said.

Nor is it a coincidence that Cone is the first former senior national team player of any gender to lead the governing body.

“After two decades of fighting for equal pay, standing on all the shoulders of the people that came before me,” she said, “to finally realize this moment when many said it couldn’t be done — or some even said it shouldn’t be done — to finally push it across the line and to achieve what we set out to achieve is meaningful. And to have my former teammates, many of them, standing beside me during this was really special as well.”

Cone didn’t just have to strike deals with two unions. She had to get them through U.S. Soccer’s board of directors, which represents all constituencies of the sport from youth clubs to the pros. The factions have a long history of disagreement, and Cone overcame it.

“This specific process was about two years in the making,” she said. “I actually wrote down everybody’s name in U.S. Soccer that in some way, shape or form helped push this over the line, and it was over 60 people.”

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Current players felt the moment deeply, too.

“I wasn’t quite sure it was going to happen in my career,” veteran centerback and team captain Becky Sauerbrunn said. “Federations have already been reaching out. We’ve actually been working with [England’s] FA, they want to know what the CBA looks like, how it works, and we’re willing to share all the ideas, all the mechanics of it.”

Then it was Megan Rapinoe’s turn, and a player who has long commanded the spotlight happily did so again.

“It still feels very surreal,” she said. “Contrary to what it seemed like, we don’t love to be in these fights. We’d much rather focus on what we need to, which is winning World Cups and continuing to be the best team we can.”

» READ MORE: Megan Rapinoe hails ‘a huge step forward’ in U.S. Soccer’s national team equal pay deals

Unfortunately, none of the men’s players were at the ceremony, because while the women’s soccer world is in a FIFA national team window, the men’s game is not. They are busy with their clubs across the planet, and all in attendance understood.

So the men’s union’s message came in a video from Walker Zimmerman, who played a big role in his group’s bargaining.

“I just want to say how excited we are to partner with the women’s national team to get this historic achievement done with equal pay,” Zimmerman said. “We’re proud of you ladies. Thank you so much for your leadership and work. … We look forward to seeing change around the world, through FIFA, to move in the same direction.”

Rapinoe and Sauerbrunn are both age 37, and know their playing days won’t last too much longer. New players coming up now won’t have to fight off the field as much as their predecessors did. But that doesn’t diminish their respect for the process, and their understanding of how to carry the lineage forward.

“I think it’s important to know the history and know what it was like before, to really appreciate what we have now,” said left back Emily Fox, a 24-year-old who grew up in the D.C. suburbs. “For the next generation, it’s like, how can they appreciate it but also ask for more, and see if they can keep getting better and better.”

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