NJ/NY Gotham FC will be honored at the White House on Monday for its 2023 National Women’s Soccer League Championship victory, marking the first time in the league’s 11-year history that a team has received the prestigious invite.
Championship-winning sports teams are frequently invited to the White House to commemorate their victories, but that has historically applied largely to men’s sports. President Joe Biden, Gotham players, staff, ownership, and NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman are expected to be in attendance.
Gotham won the 2023 NWSL Championship last November with a 2-1 victory over Seattle Reign FC (then under OL Reign naming).
The trophy was Gotham’s first in the NWSL and came just a year after the team finished in last place.
The last time a professional women’s soccer club was invited to the White House was in 2010, after Sky Blue FC — the same franchise that rebranded as Gotham in 2021 — won the inaugural title in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS), the league that preceded the NWSL’s launch in 2013.
President Barack Obama was in office at the time.
U.S. women’s national team players have also been to the White House for their international accomplishments. President Obama welcomed the U.S. women’s national team to honor them following their 2015 World Cup title.
Four years later, the USWNT repeated as World Cup champions, but players and staff did not attend a ceremony at the White House with President Donald Trump in office.
USWNT forward Megan Rapinoe, who won the Golden Ball and Golden Boot as top scorer and best player, respectively, at the 2019 World Cup, sparked a public feud with President Trump during the tournament when a video was released of her saying she’s “not going to the f—ing White House.”
President Trump replied at the time with a tweet saying that Rapinoe “should WIN first before she TALKS! Finish the job!”
The USWNT won all seven games it played at the 2019 World Cup, ultimately prevailing 2-0 over the Netherlands in the final.
Rapinoe made her way back to the White House in 2021, with President Biden in office, alongside Gotham FC forward Margaret “Midge” Purce.
Rapinoe and Purce represented the USWNT in honor of Equal Pay Day.
One year later, President Biden awarded Rapinoe the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work off the field fighting for social justice and gender equity.
She became the first soccer player to receive the award and one of only six female athletes to receive the honor.
A few months before that visit, U.S. Soccer and its players had agreed to new collective bargaining agreements guaranteeing equal pay for the men’s and women’s national teams.
