If the U.S. Soccer Team Wins Gold Today, They’ll Split a $1.5 Million Bonus . . . Here’s What Gold Medalists in Other Countries Get

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.

Sunil Gulati is the president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. And he announced yesterday that if Team U.S.A. wins, they’ll split a bonus of $1.5 million.

There are 18 players on the roster . . . but Sunil said he expects them to share the money with their trainers, and reserve players who didn’t make the Olympic team.

Assuming they split it equally and give the trainers and reserves a full share, each player will get $50,000. That’s on top of the $25,000 bonus the U.S. Olympic Committee gives any athlete that wins gold.

Yes, they’d have to pay taxes on their bonus. And they get a smaller bonus if they win the silver . . . but Sunil didn’t say how much it was.

$75,000 sounds like a lot . . . and 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.

Host country Great Britain has 22 gold medalists . . . but they’re not paying their athletes ANY bonus.

(Yahoo!)