Carli Lloyd: U.S. women's team feels like ‘second-class citizens’

Soccer star Carli Lloyd isn't mincing words when it comes to the fight for equal pay.

South Jersey's Lloyd, alongside fellow United States Women's National Team players Morgan Brian, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Christen Press, appeared on CBS' 60 Minutes Sunday night to discuss why it's a problem that they aren't paid as much as their male counterparts.

"We feel like we're treated like second-class citizens because they don't care as much about us as they do the men," Lloyd told CBS reporter Norah O'Donnell.

Lloyd told O'Donnell that the inequity extends all the way down to the types of seats they ride in during flights. While the men's team always fly first-class as part of their agreement, Lloyd notes that, "we fly in coach."

You can read the full transcript of the episode here.

The U.S. women's soccer team filed a wage-discrimination action against the U.S. Soccer Federation with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission back in May.

The players said that the women generated much more revenue than the U.S. men's national team last year but were paid only about a quarter of the men's earnings. The EEOC is investigating the issue.

Sauerbrunn told the Associated Press this week that the two sides met a couple of weeks ago, and more talks are scheduled through December. Their current contract with the U.S. Soccer Federation expires on Dec. 31.

"We're still fighting very hard for equal pay," she said. "We're not going to move on that. We're always encouraged because we know that's what we're fighting for and we feel like we're in the right to fight for something like that. Really, it's convincing U.S. Soccer that we deserve that."

When asked if the womens' team should be paid more than the men, Lloyd responded:

"Yeah, absolutely, we win. We're successful."