"Today we are announcing that all Adidas athletes on the winning 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup team will receive the same performance bonus payout as their male peers," the company said.
ADVERTISEMENTSports company Adidas announced on Friday that its sponsored players on the winning 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup team will receive the same performance bonus as their male counterparts.
"We believe in inspiring and enabling the next generation of female athletes, creators and leaders through breaking barriers," Adidas head of global brands Eric Liedtke said in a statement.
'Institutionalised gender discrimination'
The announcement comes just hours after it was revealed that all 28 players of the US women's football team — currently the world's reigning champions — are suing the US Soccer Federation (USSF) for "institutionalised gender discrimination."
The lawsuit, filed on International Women's Day, seeks equal pay and treatment as the male team.
"Despite the fact that these female and male players are called upon to perform the same job responsibilities on their teams and participate in international competitions for their single common employer, the USSF, the female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts," the lawsuits states.
"This is true even though their performance has been superior to that of the male players — with the female players, in contrast to male players, becoming world champion," it adds.
The US male team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, while the female team has won the competition three times in 1991, 1999 and 2015.
$50 million vs $400 million
FIFA, the world's football governing body, announced late last year that it was tripling its financial contribution for the Women's World Cup to $50 million dollar from $15 million four years earlier.
The prize money to be divvied up between the participating teams has been increased by 100% to $30 million, FIFA said.
In contrast the French male team received $38 million in 2018 after winning the World Cup in Russia. FIFA's total prize money for the male competition was $400 million.
The FIFA Women's World Cup, held in France, starts on June 7.