The sobering news hit even before the confetti had finished falling on the US Women’s National Team’s (USWNT) victory parade. While millions still basked in the afterglow of the team’s thrilling 5-2 World Cup Finals win over Japan, a disturbing report started making the rounds on the Internet: the US women’s squad would take home only $2 million in prize money after winning their third Cup, compared to the $35 million awarded to the German men’s team, the victor in last year’s tournament in Brazil. The US women even earned less than some men’s teams who flamed out in the first round last year.

While international soccer — including this year’s Women’s World Cup — is no stranger to controversy (slavery, corruption, misallocation of public funds, turf sexism), the reports of soccer’s woeful economic gender gap clearly struck a nerve after an exhilarating performance that delighted the soccer world and broke US TV ratings records.

Many who follow soccer have trained themselves to compartmentalize: the beauty, spectacle, and drama of what happens on the pitch over here; the ugly, stinking, scandal-ridden administration of the game over there. But even for us — and even for Americans accustomed to a gender wage gap — this was a bit much.