A report in Politico today revealed that one of the Washington, D.C. lobbying firms hired by US Soccer to push their stance on the USWNT and equal pay with lawmakers actually called Democratic presidential candidates’ campaigns to give them US Soccer’s side of the story. These campaigns were sent USSF’s presentation outlining their arguments that they don’t underpay the WNT in case the issue came up during the Democratic debate at the end of July. They contacted at least five campaigns before the debate, according to Politico.
It’s hard not to see this as US Soccer trying to give Democratic candidates USSF’s preferred talking points ahead of time, although in an email Politico obtained, the lobbyist framed it as “U.