NBA star Steph Curry is the man behind one of the biggest charitable gifts in Howard University history. The money will fund Division 1 golf teams for men and women at the school for the next 6 years.
U.S. forward Alex Morgan celebrates her hat trick with defender Tobin Heath (17) and other teammates during the second half of a Tournament of Nations soccer match against Japan in July 2018.
Colin E. Braley/AP
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Colin E. Braley/AP
The U.S. women’s soccer team is still savoring its victory after capturing the World Cup championship this summer. But off the field, the players continue to battle a gender discrimination case against their employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation.
The women are demanding pay equal to that of their counterparts on the men’s national soccer team. U.S. Soccer says it pays women more than men in salaries and game bonuses.
Last week, mediation efforts between the two sides broke down, so on Monday a federal judge set a trial date: May 2020, just weeks before the women’s team will begin play at the Tokyo Olympics.
Women’s team co-captain Alex Morgan says she doesn’t see the trial as a distraction.
“I don’t think we know soccer without distraction. We feel like we have always been fighting for a seat at the table and we have always fought for everything that we’ve earned, so having the case be pushed up to May I think is good overall,” Morgan tells NPR’s David Greene.
On whether the rift between her team and U.S. Soccer can be healed
Obviously, as it gets closer to trial, it’s probably going to get uglier, so I think that will take more time to heal. However, knowing that U.S. Soccer is our employer and we want to represent our country on the highest level and we want to move forward together … I’m hopeful in the next nine months that we can find a resolution that suits us both in that the women and the men are paid equal in compensation. If not, then I can see it continuing on this path until trial.
On whether the rift could get in the way of attracting more kids to the sport
We’re not going to reap the benefits from equal pay. Who’s going to reap the benefits is that next generation. So I think those young girls and that next generation should feel confident that they’re in good hands and that we are setting up this structure and this compensation and this true equality for them.
On her plans to participate in a fourth World Cup
I’m really confident that I can continue to play at the top of my game for another four years, so I’m really excited to continue on this journey with the national team, and with my club team, Orlando Pride, in 2023, whether that’s in Australia or wherever else because there’s currently 10 countries bidding for the 2023 [Women’s] World Cup. I hope to be there.
Milton Guevara and Jessica Smith produced and edited this story for broadcast. Heidi Glenn adapted it for the Web.
The world’s top 11 and 12-year-old baseball players are battling it out in South Williamsport, Pa., in the Little League World Series. The winners will be decided this weekend.
One of the ways Native tribes in the West celebrate their history and culture is through annual summer horse races. They’re known as Indian Relays, and tribes call them America’s first extreme sport.
Octavio Dotel, then a pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, seen during a 2007 game. Dominican Republic authorities arrested the former MLB player, saying both he and ex-infielder Luis Castillo were linked with an alleged drug trafficker.
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Two former Major League Baseball stars, pitcher Octavio Dotel and infielder Luis Castillo, have been implicated in a massive drug trafficking bust in the Dominican Republic. The country’s attorney general, Jean Alain Rodríguez, announced Tuesday that the operation targeted alleged drug kingpin César Emilio Peralta, also known as “César the abuser,” and the extensive criminal operation he led.
Castillo is not the current Cincinnati Reds player of the same name. The Luis Castillo accused by authorities played with the then-Florida Marlins and the New York Mets.
Hundreds of narcotics agents, prosecutors and other government officials took part in the attempt to dismantle Peralta’s network, which Rodríguez called “the most important drug trafficking structure in the region” and that also included alleged money laundering. Dotel is among the suspects arrested, and Rodríguez named Castillo as one of the 18 figures linked to Peralta — though both Castillo and Peralta remained at large at the time of the attorney general’s announcement.
Rodríguez did not immediately specify the role authorities believe the two former baseball players performed in Peralta’s operation. He said his team had collaborated with the U.S. during the investigation, exchanging information with the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury got involved Tuesday as well, sanctioning Peralta and his organization as “significant narcotics traffickers.”
“César Emilio Peralta and his criminal organization have used violence and corruption in the Dominican Republic to traffic tons of cocaine and opioids into the United States and Europe,” Sigal Mandelker, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement released by the department. “Treasury is targeting these Dominican drug kingpins, their front persons, and the nightclubs they have used to launder money and traffic women.”
“Only God knows the truth,” Castillo said on Instagram after Rodríguez’s news conference.
During his playing career Castillo was a three-time All-Star, three-time Golden Glove winner and World Series winner as part of the 2003 Florida Marlins. Dotel, for his part, is one of the all-time MLB leaders in the number of franchises for which he played: 13 teams during his 14-year career.
NPR’s Michel Martin talks about the new partnership between the NFL and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation with professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, political consultant Dru Ealons and NPR hip-hop writer Rodney Carmichael.
A German group gets women from around the world to play soccer — something that’s not so easy for those coming from Iran and other places where it’s considered a male pastime.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Despite the celebrated successes at the U.S. women’s team, soccer – or football, as they call it in most of the world – is seen as a man’s sport. In Berlin, an organization called Discover Football wants to embolden women athletes. As NPR’s Deborah Amos reports, eight teams gathered to lace up and speak out.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Cheering)
SIMON: For a decade now, Discover Football has connected women who have a passion to compete. More than a hundred women – coaches, referees, players – come from countries where apathy and downright hostility make it hard for women to come together to kick around a ball.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Welcome to the opening ceremony of the 8th Discover Football Festival here in Berlin.
(APPLAUSE)
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: They gather in Berlin to tackle problems on and off the field. For Sonia Slepcev and her team from Serbia, the challenge is to build talent early. But that means convincing young girls that soccer is for them.
SONIA SLEPCEV: We have a lot of stereotypes that women should not play football because it is all-male sports.
AMOS: She got her start playing neighborhood ball with boys. She joined a semi-professional women’s league before college. But she says the biggest barrier to women playing soccer is often women.
SLEPCEV: My friends from school – they were like, why do you play football? Are you a boy? Or – it’s hurtful, I think.
AMOS: The Iranian team came late. Their visas were delayed. But Iran now has a dozen national women’s soccer teams. And that’s progress, says Mahnaz Zokaee, an Iranian soccer referee. But still, the women’s matches aren’t allowed on Iranian TV.
MAHNAZ ZOKAEE: In Iran, we can just watch the men’s matches, not women match, you know? – but just follows in the Internet and, you know, in the Web.
AMOS: So you’re a crazy sports fan.
ZOKAEE: Yeah (laughter).
AMOS: She’s a big fan of the American women’s soccer team that won this year’s World Cup but no fan of American politics and the punishing economic sanctions imposed on her homeland by President Trump, which even touched her sport, she says, when she wasn’t allowed to wear her Nike gear as a professional referee in the 2018 Asian Games.
ZOKAEE: All of the Iranian referees are forbidden to wear the – Nike’s clothes in their international matches.
AMOS: What do you think about that?
ZOKAEE: I think it’s not fair. I think the sanction influenced it.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Talk to each other, guys – communication.
AMOS: The theme of this festival is fair play, as the Iranian referee points out, a feature in sports but rarely in international politics. There are other links here to the political playing fields.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Chanting) Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED PLAYERS: (Chanting) Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Chanting) Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED PLAYERS: (Chanting) Hi.
AMOS: This energetic team is called Players Without Borders. All of them are refugees in Berlin. Many are playing soccer for the very first time. It’s a milestone, says Dana Rosiger (ph). It’s why she’s worked for this organization for a decade. But she says women still have to speak out, like the American World Cup winners.
DANA ROSIGER: It was really good that America won this year because they have strong voices. And we need the strong voices. We still need to fight.
AMOS: It wasn’t until 1970 that the German Football Association lifted a ban on women’s soccer. And it took decades for the German team to catch up. The women’s team finally won the World Cup twice in 2003 and 2007. But despite the success, the German team still doesn’t get proper support, says Rosiger.
ROSIGER: Start with fair payments. Start with access to trainings. Most of the teams – they have a job besides to the – their football training.
AMOS: Restrictions that every player here has faced, which is why the bonds are so strong after a week on the field.
ROSIGER: Some are playing behind the doors or not visible at all until they get here – until they get here – and not to worry about what the consequences are.
AMOS: And here in Berlin, everybody plays to cheering fans, no matter the rules back home. Deborah Amos, NPR News, Berlin.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
This week talks between U.S. Soccer and 28 female players broke down. Also, Jay-Z signed a deal with the NFL to be the league’s “live music entertainment strategist.”
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Finally, time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: Talks broke down this week between U.S. soccer and the women’s team who demand equal pay. And you know who Jay-Z’s newest collaborator is? We’re going to be joined now by NPR’s Tom Goldman, who is not his newest collaborator so far as I know. Not yet. Not yet is what I should say. Thanks for being with us, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Always a pleasure.
SIMON: So the women’s national team walked out of mediation with U.S. Soccer Wednesday I believe over equal pay. What happened?
GOLDMAN: If you ask the women’s team members, U.S. Soccer wasn’t interested in talking about equal pay, specifically, paying the women bonuses that match the men’s players. And if you ask U.S. Soccer, talks broke down because the women’s attorneys were, quote, “aggressive and unproductive after presenting misleading information to the public,” end quote. So, Scott, both sides are angry. No talks scheduled at this time. And the gender discrimination lawsuit the women filed against U.S. Soccer back in March may be heading to trial.
SIMON: In 2019, what kind of argument does U.S. Soccer – how shall I put this nicely? – pretend to make against equal pay?
GOLDMAN: (Laughter) Well, they’re arguing the women are compensated fairly although differently than the men. And they have a whole bunch of numbers that they say back that up. Politico first reported that U.S. Soccer even hired lobbyists to try to convince lawmakers in D.C. that the Federation is in the right. But, you know, engaging in this public battle appears to be self-defeating for the U.S. – for U.S. soccer. I mean, the women players, as you well know, are the best thing going for the sport in this country.
SIMON: Yeah.
GOLDMAN: They are wildly popular. They have the potential to help spread the game from the grassroots on up, and the Federation isn’t going to win the battle of public opinion. Critics say U.S. Soccer should pay women what they’re asking, fully get on their side, which appears to be the winning side, both on and off the pitch.
SIMON: I mean, many a problem in sports is solved by throwing money at it. And I wonder why they don’t do it now. Jay-Z. His newest collaborator’s the NFL. How? Why?
GOLDMAN: (Laughter) It’s a new deal between the league and Jay-Z’s entertainment and sports company Roc Nation. They’re going to work together on the Super Bowl halftime show. And Roc Nation reportedly will help promote NFL programs dedicated to social change. These are programs that grew out of the protests during national anthems by former player Colin Kaepernick and others. And as you might imagine, this alliance is creating a ton of controversy.
SIMON: Well – and Jay-Z has – I believe is a big buddy of Colin Kaepernick. But is it cheaper for the NFL to do business with Jay-Z than it is to actually get a job for Colin Kaepernick?
GOLDMAN: There’s the million – however-many-million-dollar question, you know? Jay-Z has been a big supporter of Kaepernick’s and a critic of the NFL for the way teams have apparently blackballed the former quarterback. Jay-Z says there’s a time for protests, but now is the time for action. He’s saying this collaboration can do a lot more good for the social issues that are at the heart of the player protests.
But, you know, he’s getting a lot of flak. Current NFL safety Eric Reid, who started kneeling in protest with Kaepernick back in 2016 – he has criticized Jay-Z for saying, essentially, we’ve moved past kneeling. And Reid called the collaboration a money move. The NFL’s being criticized, too, for making a cynical grab for more African American fans it lost because of the Kaepernick controversy, which, Scott, appears to be with us still as we head into a new NFL season in about three weeks. Reid plays for Carolina. He continues to kneel during the anthem. Kaepernick posted a video, recently, showing him working out and noting he’s still without a job after three years.
SIMON: Tom Goldman, thanks so much.
GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
NPR’s Ailsa Chang talks with Sports Illustrated reporter Grant Wahl about the latest in U.S. women’s soccer players’ lawsuit to secure equal pay.
