The Hot U.S. Olympic Lady Soccer Team Gets Screwed

The U.S. Women's Soccer team plays Japan for the gold medal today.  But they'll also be playing for a whole lot of CASH.

 if you hadn't heard, the U.S. Soccer Federation has said that Team U.S.A. wins, they'll split a bonus of $1.5 million. (HOLY CRAP!!!) But wait...$1.5 Million split 18 ways. That split includes trainers, and reserve players who didn't make the Olympic team!!! (WTF?!?!?!?!)

 So, let's assume they split it equally (as the US Soccer Federation said that they should). That means they would "spread the wealth around" and each trainers and reserve gets their "fair share" , each player will get $50,000. But keep in mind, they also get a nice little $25,000 bonus from the U.S. Olympic Committee for any athlete that wins gold.

It still sucks that people who didn't even make the team gets a cut of that. But wait, it hurts even worse. When they get home, with their winnings, they still have to pay taxes on their bonus, which equals nearly 35%.

Granted $75,000 sounds like a lot, and in today's economy it is.  But it's a BARGAIN compared to how much other countries pay their gold medal winners.  

- Italy pays the most: each of their gold medalists gets $182,400. 

- Russia comes in second . . . each gold medalist gets $135,000.

- France pays $65,200

- Japan pays $35,900

- China pays $31,400

- Canada and Germany pay around $20,000.

 Then there is the host country of Great Britain, who has 22 gold medalists and they get a big bag of squat for their efforts. ..not even free dental work.

However, the US teams always have their eyes on bigger things, like endorsement deals. Some even have the bodies that should be showing off a lot more and some have even been naked for money already. If you got it flaunt it.