Players sponsored by adidas at this year’s Women’s World Cup will receive the same performance bonuses as their male counterparts if they win the tournament, the sportswear brand said on Friday.
The German apparel brand made the announcement via Twitter last week to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Eric Liedtke, executive board member and head of global brands at adidas, said: “We believe in inspiring and enabling the next generation of female athletes, creators and leaders through breaking barriers.”
On the same day, the US Women’s National Team filed a lawsuit against US Soccer for alleged discrimination and unequal pay.
The lawsuit accuses US Soccer of “institutionalised gender discrimination”, and seeks to redress longstanding wage discrepancies through back pay and other compensation.
According to the lawsuit, US Soccer gave the men’s team a bonus of $5.4m for their round of 16 exit at the 2014 World Cup, but gave only $1.7m to the women’s team when it won the World Cup in 2015.
The women’s team is reportedly paid less than half the amount of the men’s team when playing in similar fixtures.
As noted by The Guardian, if both teams played 20 friendlies in a year, the maximum that female players could earn was $99,000 or $5,000 per game, while the average that male players could earn was around $263,000 or $13,000 per game.
The US women’s team is the most successful women’s national team in the world, having won three World Cups, four Olympic titles and eight Concacaf Gold Cups.
The US men’s team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.