CNN –
Female soccer players at the 2023 Women’s World Cup will average just 25 cents for every dollar men made at their World Cup last year, a new CNN analysis has found.
Still, that’s an improvement: last time, in 2019, it was less than eight cents on the dollar, according to data from world governing body FIFA and global players’ union FIFPRO.
The gender pay gap will be clearly visible at a tournament starting July 20 in Australia and New Zealand.
FIFA announced in June that for the first time, approximately $49 million of the record $110 million in prize money at the Women’s World Cup would go directly to individual players – at least $30,000 for each entry and $270,000 for each player on the winning team.
The remainder of the pot is split between the participating federations, who decide how much of that money, if any, to give to the teams and players. In addition to the prize money, FIFA pledged to pay federations and players’ clubs US$42 million for preparations for the Women’s World Cup.
When asked for comment, world football’s governing body CNN referred to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s statement in March when the organization released details of the prize money on offer at this year’s tournament.
At the time, he said FIFA was embarking on a “historic journey for women’s football and for equality”, adding that the goal was equal payments for the men’s and women’s World Cups in 2026 and 2027 respectively.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
With an estimated worldwide audience of more than one billion viewers, the FIFA Women’s World Cup is one of the largest sporting events in the world.
Still, this year’s edition in Australia and New Zealand begins at a turning point in the sport, not least due to the disparity in pay for female players compared to their male counterparts.
Players such as Australia’s Sam Kerr and United States Women’s National Team (USWNT) Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan are celebrated as household names, while England’s lionesses grace billboards across the country.
The sport’s popularity is undoubtedly increasing, but from Jamaica to Canada, from South Africa to Spain, several teams come to this tournament because of disputes with their federations.
Despite the tremendous progress that has been made in recent years, the fight for respect and justice – or sometimes even to get paid at all – continues.
When Jamaica’s Havana Solaun put the ball in against Australia four years ago, she was mobbed by her team-mates as they celebrated the first Women’s World Cup goal in their country’s history.
Having overcome almost every obstacle imaginable — the team disbanded in 2016 before an unlikely heroine, Bob Marley’s daughter Cedella, came to the rescue — they now competed at the pinnacle of the sport.
Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Havana Solaun (right) and Jamaica are taking part in a Women’s World Cup for the second time.
Two months later, the players still hadn’t received any money from the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF). Ultimately, they were – but four years later, history begins to repeat itself.
FIFPRO Global Players’ Council member Chinyelu Asher from Jamaica told CNN Sport the current squad has reached a “breaking point”.
Just weeks before their first game, Jamaica’s players released a statement expressing their “greatest disappointment at it”. [JFF]The women’s team missed several friendlies due to “extreme disorganization” and “repeatedly turned up without receiving any contractually agreed compensation”.
Asher told CNN Sport ahead of the tournament, “We just need the federation to know we’re holding them accountable and we’re taking the matter seriously and we have no time to waste… We’re still trying to give them something.” Room to make up for lost time and change gears so we can get the best possible performance.”
CNN reached out to the JFF for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication. In a statement on its website, the JFF acknowledged that “things haven’t been done perfectly” but that it is “working diligently to address players’ concerns”.
According to Asher, the Reggae Girlz now have a contractual arrangement with their national federation, but have still had to make a public statement to ensure they receive the best possible support for a World Cup.
“The people holding the torch [the equal pay] “Battles are usually the active players and that’s a really vulnerable area,” Asher said. “When you have to fight people who give you opportunities to play… it can get really chaotic.”
Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (R) praised the growth of women’s football over the past decade in a media conference ahead of the start of the Women’s World Cup on July 20 and believes the tournament will win over the skeptics.
Football players’ salaries are made up of many different elements: salaries from their club, match fees for representing their national team, prize money and sponsorships. Therefore, equal pay may become unclear.
While Morgan and Rapinoe were the highest-paid female soccer players last year, each earning $5.7 million on and off the field, their highest-grossing male opponent, Cristiano Ronaldo, earned $136 million both on and off the field, Forbes estimated .
But Morgan and Rapinoe’s own estimated multimillion-dollar earnings are an outlier even at the highest echelons of the sport.
While the wages of top earners in countries like the US and France average nearly $250,000 a year, salaries vary widely between countries and can be less than $600 a month, if at all, according to a report by the global Players union FIFPRO in 2020.
Brad Smith/USSF/Getty Images
Alex Morgan and the USWNT are seeking their third consecutive Women’s World Championship title.
The report also found that top female soccer players generally earn the same or less in a year than male soccer players of the same level per month.
“Mean or poor pay is unacceptable because these footballers, who are the best in their country, spend hours, weeks, months and years of their time representing their national team at the highest level,” said Jonas Baer-Hoffmann, FIFPRO General secretary, told CNN Sports.
The Women’s World Cup is an important source of income for players. But many who will compete over the next few weeks needed other jobs to support themselves.
A FIFPRO report published in June revealed that two-thirds of the players surveyed said they had to take unpaid leave from another job to represent their national team in World Cup qualifiers such as the CONCACAF W Championship or the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations .
Almost a third received no salary at all from their national teams in the last 18 months and those who did received salary were often dependent on attendance and performance, creating instability.
“It’s not like an amusement park, we’re footballers, most of us are professional players,” Asher said, recalling working as a coach at times during her career to make ends meet.
“This is our career and this deserves compensation and a reward for the work done,” she said.
According to a 2022 FIFA Benchmarking Report, almost a quarter (23%) of the 225 clubs across 25 domestic leagues have mostly amateur players, while the rest work with a mix of professionals – who have an official contract with the club and earn more than their accruing Editions – and amateurs.
More than half (53%) of the associations surveyed still have no minimum wage regulations for players.
In the run-up to the Women’s World Cup, Infantino threatened to ban tournament broadcasts in five major European countries over unacceptable offers of media rights. However, it should be noted that FIFA is not short of cash – their record-breaking revenue for the 2019-2022 cycle was $7.6 billion.
FIFA’s move to introduce individual prize money this year comes after more than 150 players from 25 national teams, supported by their global union FIFPRO, sent a letter to the football governing body last October demanding equal terms and equal prize money .
“Many women’s World Cup players come to the tournament as amateurs or semi-professionals, which undermines their preparation and therefore the quality of the football we see on the pitch,” FIFPRO said in the letter sent to Infantino in October 2022 , adding that many players also failed to have an agreement with their member associations to ensure guaranteed World Cup compensation.
Baer-Hoffmann told CNN that the prize money guarantee for players “is an important step towards giving more of them financial independence and allowing them to focus on playing their best,” but also urged national federations on “giving a lot” to their players. more financial support” in the years between each World Cup.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
The gender pay gap is typically expressed in monetary terms and measures how much women make for every dollar a man makes. But for players, equal pay means more than just bridging the gap to male footballer salaries.
“I know that’s not realistic (right now),” Asher said, emphasizing the importance of facilities, scheduling and maternity leave. “Anything that gives a professional player space to show off and feel as professional as a man.”
With some of the Women’s World Cup money set aside for players, New Zealand captain Ali Riley told CNN’s Amanda Davies that although it’s not the “finish line,” it represents a “major milestone.”
Riley recalled that earlier in her career, competing in the World Cup was “just for honor” and not something that could provide financial security.
“It’s not just about increasing the prize money,” she added. “But also the same conditions regarding the size of the delegation and the availability of single rooms. These are things you would have thought we had a long time ago.”
Catherine Ivill/FIFA/Getty Images
Ali Riley (R) will lead her team on home soil.
Meanwhile, Canada’s players told a parliamentary committee in March that the team had been forced to cut training programs and staff, were paid significantly less than their male counterparts in 2021 – the year they became Olympic champions – and that there was “disregard ‘ There has been any attempt to form a national women’s league.
The association spent more than double on men’s national soccer teams ($11 million) than on women’s teams ($5.1 million) in 2021, according to a CNN analysis of Canada Soccer’s financial accounts.
And in 2022, when the men’s team qualified for the World Cup and was eliminated in the group stage for the first time since 1986, Canada Soccer spent even more – $19.5 million on men’s national teams of all ages. The women’s national team also qualified for the World Cup, but received only $14 million.
Canada Soccer said it had proposed a landmark equal pay agreement that would result in the women’s team becoming the second-highest paid national team, but an agreement has yet to be reached. CNN has reached out to Canada Soccer for comment but has received no response as of publication.
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Of all the practical obstacles to gender equality in football, it’s “sexist attitudes” and “shifting the barriers to recruitment that are the most difficult,” Heather Reid, former chief executive of Women’s Soccer Australia, told CNN Sport.
Such attitudes run deep. Until relatively recently, women in several countries around the world could not even play football.
It was “completely unsuitable for women,” according to a 1921 English Football Association (FA) minutes book, and the organization banned women from playing at their clubs until 1971. The French Football Federation did not recognize women’s football until 1970, and Royal Belgium did not recognize women’s football until 1970. Football Association a year later.
Even today, most decision-makers in football are men: the UEFA Executive Committee has 20 members, including 19 men, while the FIFA Council has 37 members, including 30 men. All but one of these women who sit on these decision-making bodies occupy quota seats reserved specifically for women.
And almost three-quarters (74%) of head coaches in all women’s football leagues are still male, with Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway having no women at all in top positions, according to the 2022 FIFA Benchmarking Report.
“I think it’s a mindset. It’s tradition,” Riley said. “Women’s football is still new.”
The recent history of women’s football is closely linked to its fight for equal pay and equal treatment.
Days before the start of the World Cup, the England Lionesses announced they were shelving talks with their federation about performance awards until the end of the tournament.
In early July, the Football Association of England announced that it would not be paying players any bonuses for their performances at the World Cup on top of the individual prize money promised by FIFA.
“We are disappointed that there is still no resolution,” the players said in a statement.
Four years ago, shouts of “equal game, equal pay” echoed around the stadium as the USWNT lifted the World Cup trophy.
“I think you have to see it [the increase in prize money at this World Cup] “In the context of probably a decade of actions that were taking place domestically, obviously in the United States, but … in all sorts of countries, players with their unions as a collective have made these pushes to raise standards in their country,” Baer said – Hoffmann told CNN’s Amanda Davies.
Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Megan Rapinoe topped the USWNT fight for equal pay.
USWNT players agreed to an equal pay deal with US Soccer in May 2022, after six years of legal wrangling stemming from a 2016 wage discrimination lawsuit filed by five of the team’s stars – Carli Lloyd, Rapinoe, Morgan, Hope Solo and Becky Sauerbrunn – and a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by the entire team in 2019.
As a result, the USWNT made more money from their male peers reaching the knockout stages of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar than from winning their own tournaments in 2015 and 2019.
“It was challenging,” Lloyd told CNN Sport, adding that they called attorneys, read documents and held team meetings on legal strategy during training camps.
“We’ve been fighting this battle for six years and nobody wants to argue with their employer,” she added. “[But] Long gone are the days when we thought we had to just accept what we were given. That’s why it was our duty to fight and make the sport better… just like all the players before us had done.”
Check out this interactive content on CNN.com
Different challenges existed for the generation before Lloyd that championed and participated in the fledgling international tournaments of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“In the past, players paid to represent their country,” Reid said, recalling that when Australia went to China in 1988 for the FIFA Women’s Invitational Tournament, a pilot World Cup, each player had to contribute $850.
Although the sport has since become more professional, the same problems still blight it.
“People want to know how the progress has been since the last World Cup,” Asher said. “And I’m like, ‘We’re here and we’re going to do it again.'”