US women’s football team 'use' gender discrimination lawsuit as confetti during victory parade

‘Our lawsuit? In the f**king trees’

The US Women’s football team celebrated their World Cup victory in the most brilliant way, by using their gender discrimination lawsuit as confetti during their celebration parade in New York City.

On Wednesday, the US’ national team returned to home soil following their Women’s World Cup victory on Sunday against the Netherlands in France.

The winning team were welcomed with a ticker tape parade in New York City, followed by a ceremony outside City Hall, that saw thousands of supporters lining the streets of Manhattan to cheer them on, with chants of “equal pay” echoed through the city.

Before their appearance on the steps of City Hall, goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris filmed herself crumpling up a piece of paper which she claimed to be a page from the gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the team against the governing body US Soccer Federation over equal pay earlier this year.

“Our lawsuit? In the f**king trees,” Harris can be heard saying off camera, before zooming in to focus on the trees outside City Hall covered in what appear to be pages from the document.

In another video, another person can be heard saying “f**king lawsuit, get that sh*t out of here,” while kicking pages of the document.

Ashlyn Harris crumples up piece of paper at City Hall (Instagram: ashlynharris24)

Allie Long, a midfielder for the team, is also seen shoving a page from the document in her mouth in another of Harris’ videos on the social media platform.

Allie Long shoves piece of paper in her mouth at City Hall (Instagram: ashlynharris24)

“Pay us b*tch,” she says before “eating” the piece of paper.

Several fans of the team have shared images of some of the confetti used during the parade, stating that it is made of shredded government documents.

“The “confetti” raining at the #USWNT parade is actually made of shredded documents,” wrote one Twitter user.

“Kinda hoping they are government secrets!”

Another tweeted: “The lawsuit as confetti. they did that [sic].”

“The “confetti” in the ticker tape parade is actually shredded government documents from City Hall,” wrote another.

In March, the US women’s national team filed a lawsuit against US Soccer, accusing the organisation of “institutionalised gender discrimination” over equal pay.

All 28 members of the team filed class action lawsuits, which also alleges discrimination over training facilities, coaching, medical treatment and travel conditions, according to the New York Times.

The lawsuit , which is ongoing, shares many similarities with a wage-discrimination complaint filed by five US players in 2016.

The parade comes days after World Cup winners Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan appeared on the cover of the latest issue of Sports Illustrated and highlighted the importance of financial parity in football.

“Everyone’s asking what’s next and what we want to come from all this,” striker Megan Rapinoe stated following the final, according to the publication.

“And it’s to stop having the conversation about equal pay and ‘Are we worth it?’ and ‘Should we?’ and the investment piece. What are we going to do about it?”

Rapinoe continued, saying that it’s time for members of the industry to sit down together and “really get to work”.