Atlanta United coach Frank de Boer is not on board with equal pay for women in soccer. In an interview with The Guardian, de Boer said women’s soccer and tennis don’t bring in the same type of revenue as the men, which is why they should not get paid the same amount of money.
“I think for me, it’s ridiculous,” de Boer said via ESPN. “It’s the same like tennis. If there are watching, for the World Cup final, 500 million people or something like that, and 100 million for a women’s final, that’s a difference. So it’s not the same. And of course, they have to be paid what they deserve to [earn] and not less, just what they really deserve. If it’s just as popular as the men, they will get it, because the income and the advertising will go into that. But it’s not like that, so why do they have to earn the same? I think it’s ridiculous. I don’t understand that.”
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He went on to say that he’s all about equal pay in other fields of work, but when it comes to sports it’s completely different.
“I think it started because a woman [was] getting underpaid, especially at [managerial] positions,” he told the newspaper. “They have to earn the same as a man. I think if you have a manager position for a bank or something, you have to earn the same what the men did because it’s not physically, just only here [points to head], so why do you have to earn less, because you’re doing the same job as a man? I think that’s also dropped a little bit into the sports world, like tennis and soccer. But I think that’s still different.”
This all stems from the U.S. Women’s soccer team suing the U.S. Soccer Federation because they feel like they are being underpaid. However, the USSF released a letter saying the women’s team made $8 million more than the men from 2010-2018.
De Boer became the coach of Atlanta United earlier this year and he took over a team that won the MLS cup in 2018. Right now, Atlanta United is in second place in the Eastern Conference of the MLS and they face Minnesota United on Aug. 27 in the finals of the U.S. Open Cup.
