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The U.S. women’s football team won its fourth world cup Sunday as their fans chanted for equal pay in the stadium to highlight the gender pay gap in the sport.
The United States won a record-extending fourth women's football World Cup with a 2-0 victory over the Netherlands Sunday as second-half goals from Megan Rapinoe and Rose Lavelle confirmed their status as the leading power in the women's game.
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Rapinoe, the co-captain of the U.S. team is known for her vocal criticism of the gender pay gap in the sport.
The International Federation of Association Football’s (FIFA) was slammed by the captain Saturday before the final match for offering women signifantly less prize money than men. FIFA’s prize money for the men’s world cup in 2018 was US$400 million and the women’s total prize money is US$30 million.
The FIFA president Gianni Infantino said they will double the prize to US$60 million in the next world cup.
"It certainly is not fair," Rapinoe said. "We should double it now and use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time."
During the finals Sunday, U.S. football fans greeted Infantino with chants of "equal pay, equal pay.”
Rapinoe also slammed FIFA for its “terrible scheduling” as the organization scheduled two men’s finals the same day as the women’s final.
The U.S. and Mexico match for the Gold Cup and Brazil and Peru match for Copa America is scheduled the same day.
"That's a terrible idea to put everything on the same day, in every way," Rapinoe said. "Obviously there's two other finals going on but this is the World Cup final. This is like, cancel-everything day."
Rapinoe is known for her fights against discrimination in sports as well as for her verbal criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Earlier she said she would not visit the White House if she wins the world cup and she stood by her statement Saturday.
"Psssh, I'm not going to the f**king White House," Rapinoe said last month.
"I don't know, I haven't spoken to everybody about it. Obviously not myself, not Ali Krieger, and I suspect not many, if any, of the other players, but I haven't spoken to every one of them about it,” Rapinoe said Saturday about visiting White House.
Trump said Rapinoe was “disrespecting” the U.S. by making the statement, and for not singing the national anthem at the beginning of the team’s World Cup games, something she has made regular practice of since former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began the tradition in 2016 to bring attention to U.S. police killing Black men with impunity.
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