The U.S. co-captain says the national team’s new long-term contract is a very fair deal for the veterans and it will also benefit the next generation of players who may not have any leverage. SOCCER AMERICA: Do you feel vindicated? JULIE FOUDY: I don’t know if vindicated is the word. One of our big things is to make sure to get something in place for the younger kids for the future, especially with a lot of us retiring post-Olympics. We were afraid they wouldn’t have any leverage to do a contract. One of the great things about this was doing a five-year contract. No one wants to go through this every year. SA: The contract is favorable to the players. Did you get what you wanted? JF: We came in high. They came in low. They offered us something very fair. We kind of found a middle ground that works for both of us. I don’t think what we got is asking too much. Yet they respected us enough to give us something we can live with. A lot of it is bonus-laden. Depending on how we do at the Olympics affects our future salary. Their concern is if we don’t do as well at the Olympics, they don’t do as well at the gate. The next step is not to have the contract so performance based. We have a three-month severance in there. But there’s no pension. If you no longer have NCAA eligibility, if you play a game you automatically fall into the contract. Before it was ridiculous. To get paid, you had to have 75 caps to be in the first tier, 50 caps in another tier. It wasn’t smart. Now if you play a game and are part of the national team, you get this. That was what we really fought for -for the young players. So many of them don’t have caps. We didn’t want them to have to play 10 years to make money. SA: How long did it take to do the deal once both sides started negotiating? JF: Jan. 24 was the first time since the World Cup that they came to us with any sort of [long-term] proposal. And then we ended up with a five-year contract in five days. A world record. SA: Why did the Federation take so long to negotiate with you? JF: To this day, I still don’t know. I’m sure it’s some anger toward that indoor tour. That was the most frustrating thing on our side. You can’t play without a contract. SA: You must have been pleased that the young players agreed to boycott the Federation if you hadn’t signed, as you asked them to. JF: I felt proud that they understood the importance of it. It’s hard for the young kids who don’t know the history and the terms to say, “Yeah, we’re going to fight for our future.” They think they’re invincible. This is something that concerns all of us. It’s specific for the future of women’s soccer. That’s always been the foundation of our team – unity and concern for the team first instead of the individual. SA: Will the dispute have any long-term affects on the team’s relationship with the Federation? JF: There’s always been some tension there. I think that the unfortunate side of it is we missed Australia. SA: Will there be any animosity between the players and key Federation officials, such as Hank Stein-brecher, Tom King and Bob Contiguglia? JF: No, you separate it. This is business. This is the business side of it. This is what we’re really good at doing with the team. It’s part of the business. We try and keep personal feelings out of it. That’s not always successful. We don’t have a lot of interaction with these guys anyway. Now we’re thinking about winning the Olympics, winning the gold. What’s happened has happened. ‘We’ve always been an outspoken group’ SA: Was there anything to the rumor that U.S. Soccer was unhappy that you were outspoken about the dispute and it wanted you off the team? JF: I don’t know what the Federation’s been talking about, but I don’t think there’s any truth to that. We’ve always been an outspoken group. It’s obviously not just me. SA: What’s your reaction to April Heinrichs getting the job as your coach? JF: I think it’s great. Obviously, we know Ape and just learned so much from her as our captain back in the first World Cup days. She’s just an unbelievable leader. Everyone always knew April was going to get the job. It was just a question of when. She has a good grasp of what’s going on with the younger kids. That hasn’t been a lot of the focus in the past. There have been a lot of talks about what we’ll do with our young male players through Project 2010. What are we doing with young girls? I think April will be real instrumental with that to make sure a good system is in place. SA: How did you stay in shape the last few weeks? JF: Joy [Fawcett] and Tish [Venturini] live down here [in Southern California]. We would train down here. There’s a group of guys who play in MLS whom we played indoor and pick up with. They were great. They would want me to say they were the reason we stayed fit. SA: Will you retire from the national team after the Olympics? JF: I’m probably going to retire. SA: Would you play in the women’s professional league that’s expected to start next year? JF: Definitely. SA: Will you continue to work in television? JF: Definitely. I’ll probably get more seriously into that after I retire. I don’t see myself doing one thing. I’ll probably be involved in a lot of different areas. But TV will probably be one of them, along with children’s rights activists stuff and women’s activists stuff. by Soccer America associate editor Dean Caparaz
‘I don’t think what we got is asking too much’