Women’s Soccer Star and NBA Player Feud Over Equal Pay

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is catching flack from U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe for saying he was “tired” of hearing women complain about equal pay.  

“I’m really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay because they’re doing themselves a disservice by just complaining,” he said in an interview. When the reporter interrupted to say the women weren’t just complaining, Green responded, “but they are.” 

“They’re not laying out steps that they can take to change that, and so it’s coming off as a complaint because the people that can change it, they are just going to continue to say, ‘Well, the revenue isn’t there.” He shot back. “The revenue isn’t there. So if you don’t bring in the revenue, we can’t up your pay.’ They’re going to keep using that, but the reality is, as true as that is, it’s an excuse.”

"I'm really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay, b/c they're doing themselves a disservice by just complaining."
Today Draymond talked about his Tweets about women's sports that received criticism from athletes like @mPinoe & @Layshiac @kron4news #DubNation pic.twitter.com/7iUQ982jx9

— Kylen Mills (@KylenMills) April 1, 2021

Rapinoe, who met with President Biden last month and spoke at an “Equal Pay Day” event at the White House, blasted Green for his commentary.

“You don’t think that we’ve asked for more [investment]?” she said at a Team USA media event on Wednesday. “I mean, what are we screaming about nonstop?”

“Obviously you kinda showed your whole a**, not even understanding what we all talk about all the time, whether it’s WNBA players or us here on the national team, so that was frustrating,” she remarked about Green’s comments. 

“And we know this about all social movements, and all people who are marginalized by race or gender, religion, sexuality, whatever it is: It is not just their job to be the ones fighting oppression, we need all of the other people as well,” Rapinoe went on. 

She expressed her disappointment in Green for being someone who knows “what it’s like to be oppressed,” but is unsupportive of fellow oppressed female athletes.  

“He has all the resources in the world. There’s obviously a lot of amazing people that I know personally that work in the Warriors organization, who I’m sure are very happy to sit down with him,” she concluded. “And any of us really would be happy to sit down with him. So hopefully that education process comes. ‘Cause that was really disappointing. And from someone who has such a big platform, as we know, that’s just not acceptable at all.”

Marie Finn