Winning an Olympic gold medal and two World Cup titles are incredible life accomplishments. But Alex Morgan isn’t taking her foot off the gas pedal anytime soon. The 32-year-old soccer star says she will do everything her power to make U.S. Women’s Soccer truly equitable for all.
In May 2022, Morgan and her teammates on the U.S. Women’s Soccer team won a $24 million settlement from their gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The landmark agreement ensures equal pay for male and female U.S. players going forward. Morgan became one of the faces of the lawsuit alongside her teammate Megan Rapinoe. The two were among five players who filed the original complaint in 2016.
Of the $24 million settlement, $2 million will go toward the players’ post-career goals, as well as charitable funds that support girls’ and women’s soccer.
In addition to transforming the future of women’s soccer, Morgan recently authored “The Kicks,” a book series about soccer geared toward middle schoolers, launched a digital media company with some of her fellow Olympians that aims to elevate women’s voices, partnered with the clean nutrition brand Orgain and is busy being mom to her 2-year-old daughter, Charlie. On top of all of that, she’s now playing with the San Diego Wave, a new team in the National Women’s Soccer League.
Morgan recently spoke with Know Your Value about the historic gender discrimination lawsuit, mom life, her least favorite part of the game and more.
Below is the conversation, which has been edited for brevity and clarity:
Know Your Value: What was something that surprised you during the six-year period that it took for your equal pay battle to come to a close?
Morgan: There are things that U.S. soccer would do – like put out information or releases – that we didn’t know about beforehand. That would put us on our back feet, and we were like ‘oh we need to respond ASAP.’ Meanwhile, we’d have a game we were preparing for and we’d have to get on a call with our lawyers two hours before a game …So there were things like that that made it really difficult for us as we tried to fulfill our career obligations and play soccer, but also like – [it was] almost a second full time job.
Know Your Value: How did you celebrate with the other women that filed the suit?
Morgan: We haven’t really seen each other, but we did get on a Zoom to celebrate, and me and Pinoe (Megan Rapinoe) had our glasses of wine. Some other girls had a game the next day, but we didn’t have a game so…
Know Your Value: You wrote a book series for middle schoolers – why did you think your message was particularly important for that age group?








