As the new National Women’s Soccer League season kicks off in the coming days, one major news story overshadows everything- the United States Women’s National Team’s wage discrimination lawsuit against US Soccer.
Yesterday, FCKC, the reigning champions, were represented on a national media conference call by head coach Vlatko Andonovski and Becky Sauerbrunn. They were joined by league commissioner Jeff Plush, Orlando Pride head coach Tom Sermanni, and Becky Edwards. Of course, the USWNT suit was a re-occurring topic; as it should be.
Becky Sauerbrunn was asked several times about the USWNT ‘s EEOC wage discrimination case and the possibility of an Olympic boycott, but she kept deflecting the questions and stayed on message.
Obviously, the NSWL pre-managed and pre-rehearsed their answers before getting on the call.
“The complaint that we filed is with US Soccer, and so the NWSL is a separate thing,” said Sauerbrunn.
“So we’re committed to playing in the league and everything else that deals with the national team and US Soccer. We’re just excited for NWSL to start and we’re thrilled about the investment that Fox Sports, Nike, and the federation have put into the league. So we’re just going to be focusing on that.”
Becky Sauerbrunn gave this answer when asked about the possibility of a USWNT strike affecting the league:
“I can’t speak for the entire team – it’s not something that we’ve discussed because we’ve only been focused with the complaint concerning our national team status, so it’s something that we haven’t really talked about.”
“These are situations dealing with the complaint that we filed with US Soccer, and so since we’re speaking about the NWSL, that’s pretty much what we’re just focused on right here. All the players are dedicated to our teams for right now on the pro level and everything going on with the national team is kind of separate. As far as negotiations and CBA stuff that’s all national team stuff and we’re trying to see progress, and if we see progress, then we’ll make decisions from there. But for right now we’re with our team in our cities in our markets and we’re just focused on the start of the season.”
It’s boilerplate sounding talk for sure, but what was Sauerbrunn supposed to say? What could you possibly expect Becky Sauerbrunn to say?
Plush added to the idea of a solid firewall existing between USWNT player deals with the NWSL and with USSF
“We’re not party to everything that’s going on,” he said.
“We have the 24 [USWNT] players in our league and there’s certainly very close with the federation and have all the confidence that they’ll continue to manage that and come out of it with a resolution. We’re not going to get caught up in the things that’s outside of our control.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram