Former USA goalkeeper Hope Solo has launched a scathing attack on Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan in the wake of the US women’s national team’s $24 million (£17.8m) equal pay settlement, claiming her former team-mates “both know this is not a win”.
The defending world champions agreed to settle their long-standing equal pay fight with US Soccer earlier this week, albeit for a third of the amount they originally sought in damages.
“This settlement is not a ‘huge win.’ It’s heartbreaking and infuriating. A ‘promise’ of equal pay from the Federation and backpay for a select group of players isn’t equal pay and it’s not what this fight was about,” Solo wrote in a lengthy statement on social media.
“Read the fine print. ‘Contingent upon the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement’,” Solo wrote on Twitter. “It doesn’t exist yet and is not guaranteed.”
The terms of the agreement will see the USSF commit to paying their women’s and men’s national teams equally in all friendlies and tournaments – including the World Cup – on the condition of a collective bargaining agreement.
Solo, who won one World Cup and two Olympic gold medals in a 16-year international career has been a long-standing critic of the team’s high-profile pursuit of pay parity.
She is one of several top US stars who who kick-started the team’s equal pay fight in 2016 after filing a federal wage discrimination complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rapinoe and Morgan were also part of that group, but Solo criticised them for the part they played in brokering the agreement with US Soccer.
“Throughout the entire process, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan were the two most agreeable with the Federation and to this day, continue to to accept terms that are nowhere near what we set out to do,” Solo added. “They both know this is not a win,” said Solo. “They know it’s an easy out of a fight they were never really in.”
Solo also paid tribute to several other household names from the US side that won the World Cup in 2015 – including Christie Rampone and Abby Wambach – who “set this fight in motion will not benefit from the selfishness and inequality of this settlement.”
Solo has courted controversy in the past, most notably when she had her contract terminated by the USSF after calling the Sweden team “a bunch of cowards” when the USWNT suffered a shock loss in the 2016 Olympic quarter-finals.
In January last year, she also claimed the team were not doing enough in their fight for equal pay and during her early years playing for the national team, likened the squad to a “mean girls club”.