Rose Lavelle is officially joining English Women’s Super League side Manchester City.
The club confirmed the signing on Tuesday after Lavelle was linked to a move abroad on Sunday. Lavelle was acquired by NWSL side OL Reign, but immediately agreed to play outside of the league starting this upcoming season.
“I’m so excited to join Manchester City and I can’t wait to play alongside some really talented players,” Lavelle said in a club interview.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity of playing in England and competing in the Champions League. After talking with Gareth [Taylor] about the team and how he saw me fitting in, it seemed like a great environment that would really push and develop me as a player.”
Lavelle joins up with USWNT teammate Samantha Mewis, whom also joined the Citizens earlier this summer. The duo are the latest acquisitions by the club, joining England forward Chloe Kelly.
The Cincinnati native spent the last three seasons with the Washington Spirit, where she made 21 appearances across all competitions. Lavelle helped the Spirit reach the NWSL Challenge Cup quarterfinals, scoring a goal in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Red Stars back in late June.
Lavelle, 25, has become a regular player for the USWNT since making her debut back in 2017 under then-head coach Jill Ellis. She won the Bronze Ball at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, scoring three goals in six appearances. In total, Lavelle has scored 12 goals and added seven assists in 45 career appearances for the USWNT.
“I’ve heard amazing things about the Club and it just felt like a really good fit overall,” Lavelle said. “I want to challenge myself and feel that Manchester City is the perfect environment to do so and hopefully, I’ll find some success along the way.”
Both players will be featuring under a new head coach in Manchester as Gareth Taylor takes over for Alan Mahon. Manchester City was second in the FA Women’s Soccer League before the COVID-19 pandemic halted the campaign.
They open the new season against newly-promoted Aston Villa on the weekend of Sept. 5th-6th.
@jamie, ah yes, the strawman argument, that goes off on a complete tangent, and clearly didn’t even read what I wrote.
You state that women get paid 71 cents on the dollar for the same work. I pointed out that they aren’t doing the same work. Why aren’t the women suing the NWSL for equal pay with MLS? Why isn’t the WNBA suing for equal pay with the NBA? It’s because they aren’t doing the same work. They’re not playing in MLS or the NBA, they’re playing in their own leagues, with their own pay structure, that’s why.
NWSL tops out at $50k max salaries and I know OL pays better than that hence their international roster. City WFC might also, though they don’t have as many foreign players and they probably also have serious UK taxes. Maybe City is trying to make a push in WSL and Europe. Maybe the ladies are concerned about NWSL financial health. Reality is they make most of their money off NT compensation, hence the lawsuit.
It’s simple economics, the men risk more future club earnings than the ladies, so their compensation for taking that risk is higher.
It’s not an equal pay issue, as the men and the women don’t do the same job on the same playing field; they play on different fields, thus different jobs. If a woman played her club soccer on a majority men’s club team, then that would be playing on the same field and an equal pay suit would be appropriate. This is not that.
Ah, yes. The “it’s simple economics” argument, which has been used to justify, among other things: tax breaks for billionaires, running the environment into the ground for nonrenewable resource extraction, paying women 71 cents to the dollar for the same work as men, running manufacturing companies on sweatshop labor from the third world, literal slavery…
Whenever I hear someone whip out the “it’s simple economics argument,” I know they’re about to tell me something that’s a) not about simple economics at all, and b) grossly immoral. It’s the “I’m not racist, but…” of people with a bachelor’s degree.
My point with “lawsuit” was the majority of their income is WNT and not club pay. In that sense they are back where the MNT was before 1990. And back then if any foreign team waved money it was probably more than A-League was paying. At that point, you actually had a decision, do I sign a deal to sit and make a huge amount, or make a school teacher salary or worse, but play. Hence in 1994 many signed contracts direct with USSF to train year round in prep for the world cup. Anyhow, my point is if NWSL doesn’t pay much then any club offering any money is attractive regardless of your actual playing prospects.
Of course is simple economics : Compare TV revenue, people in the stands and you’ll see that will be crazy to support a ladies team with men’s salaries.
It’s only “simple economics” if teams are completely self-reliant. In reality MLS is dominated by teams also owned by NFL or CFL teams or conglomerates, playing in multisport stadia. The teams that are actually self reliant like Houston tend to suck. More to the point, most of NWSL and particularly the few big teams abroad, are adjuncts to MLS — or, better, some Big Club. City is owned by billionaires. The cost of the women’s team is probably paid for within the income of one City men’s home game. My point was never that the club compensation should be the same, but nor does your point hold, because they are basically an add on spending a tiny percentage of the men’s profits. They could probably pay a desired female player $1 million and not blink, if that’s what the market would bear. The compensation is set by the market rate and not by income. Crowds for women’s soccer are small.
The NT discussion is something else, they play a lot more games and accumulate similar revenue in aggregate. They should be paid about the same. And I wasn’t even so much trying to get at that directly as say that the reason to get angry about it, is that’s really their true leading employer, who pays them most, where they play most of their games any given year. They make cameos for their NWSL sides. Lloyd barely played in Houston when she was here for 2 years. In that sense, to me, it’s like MLS got sued as contracts started to rise in amount. There was income aplenty but their pay was lagging.
FWIW the WNT probably makes tens of millions in revenue and probably pays single digit millions in payroll. To the extent we’re talking economics to pay more.