I wonder who got threatened or blackmailed to make this happen?

The soccer federation won their first court thing easily. From what I've read their followup claims were even more ridiculousness as with covid the women's contract meant they were paid more than the mens team. The soccer federation was like "ok then you get the mens contract" and the womens team was like "no we want all the mens stuff and our stuff to".

The only way to lose this was to settle. Someone must have threatened and/or paid someone off.