Coca-Cola Blasts U.S. Soccer for Citing Women’s Team Inferiority

(Bloomberg) -- Coca-Cola Co. blasted the U.S. Soccer Federation after it argued in a legal filing this week that the U.S. women’s national team is paid differently than the men because their play is inferior and they compete in front of less hostile fans.

A long-term partner of U.S. Soccer, Coke said in a statement Wednesday that it was “extremely disappointed with the unacceptable and offensive comments.”

“We have asked to meet with them immediately to express our concerns,” the company said. “The Coca-Cola Co. is firm in its commitment to gender equality, fairness and women’s empowerment in the United States and around the world, and we expect the same from our partners.”

A spokesman for U.S. Soccer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Coke’s statement, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, follows the latest filings by U.S. Soccer in a lawsuit brought last year by the women’s team over pay discrimination. The four-time World Cup champions argue that they are paid less than the men despite doing the same job.

U.S. Soccer, which has argued that the jobs are different, further clarified that position this week. The organization said men are paid differently partly because the men’s game requires a greater degree of skill and features a higher level of competition. It also said that the hostility of fans for the men’s team “can be unlike anything” the women’s team faces.

“This is all evidence of substantially different jobs,” U.S. Soccer said.

Molly Levinson, a representative for the U.S. women’s team, called the argument “ridiculous” and said it “belongs in the Paleolithic era.”

“It sounds as if it has been made by a caveman,” she said. “Literally everyone in the world understands that an argument that male players ‘have more responsibility’ is just plain simple sexism and illustrates the very gender discrimination that caused us to file this lawsuit to begin with.”

The trial on the lawsuit is set to begin on May 5.

In 2015, Atlanta-based Coke signed a long-term partnership with U.S. Soccer, part of a wider deal that included Major League Soccer and the Mexican National Team’s U.S. games. The company has also been active during the men’s and women’s World Cups through partnerships with FIFA.

U.S. soccer teams are supposed to compete this summer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum

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