As all eyes are turning to The World Cup and women’s sport, the pay differences between the male and female teams have been exposed and it isn’t pretty.
It is unfortunately no surprise that pay inequality still exists, but the pay differences between male and female national teams can be described as disgusting.
According to research done by Oddspedia, the country with the biggest pay difference in average team salary is England which has a humongous gap of negative 2,425 percent.
The men’s team has an average team salary or $13,456,420 compared to the nation’s women’s team taking just $532,959 and given they are the second favourites to win the Women’s World Cup and ranked 8th in the world, that figure should be higher.
The US women’s team who are number 1 in the world and favourites to win the World Cup take home more than $2.5 million less than the male team.
Meanwhile, Australia is no better, with a pay gap of negative 549 percent the women’s team has an average team salary of only $128,761 while our men take home $836,138.
These truly eye-watering figures come only days after the Matilda’s called out FIFA over the prize money gap in a video they released where they asked for better investment into the women’s game.
With the @FIFAWWC kicking off this Thursday, our @TheMatildas have a message for those who paved the way. For those who broke down barriers and fought for progress. For the past. For the future.
— Professional Footballers Australia (@thepfa) July 16, 2023
For those within our football community, our fans, our sponsors, our politicians,… pic.twitter.com/gVImezbX30
“Collective bargaining has allowed us to ensure we now get the same conditions as the Socceroos (the professional Australian men’s team), with one exception – FIFA will still only offer women one quarter as much prize money as men for the same achievement,” the players said.
“And our sisters in the A-league Women’s are still pushing for football to be a full-time career, so that they don’t have to work part-time jobs like we had to.”
Prize money for the women’s tournament set for the women’s tournament is around $160 million, with the men’s tournament from only last year said to be worth about $643 million.
FIFA has now pledged to equalise World Cup prize money for its two senior tournaments by 2027.
