Footballers on the England women’s team are unlikely to be paid as much as their counterparts on the men’s team until their leagues generate as much money as the men’s game, the Football Association’s (FA) boss has said.
That is despite the Lionesses winning the European Championships and reaching the World Cup final, the sort of success that has eluded the men’s team for nearly 60 years.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham told Sky News pay parity between the men and women’s teams is a “long-term goal” for the organisation, but is not possible until the women’s game grows.
England manager Sarina Wiegman earns less than her men’s team counterpart, Gareth Southgate, despite delivering a trophy.
And beyond winning the Euros last year, Wiegman has led England into their first World Cup final on Sunday since the men in 1966.
The Lionesses squad – through their clubs – are not on the multimillion pound annual salaries enjoyed by those in men’s football.
Mr Bullingham told Sky News: “Of course, we’d love to get to the point where everyone’s paid the same and I think that has to be the long-term goal.
“I think for the moment though, if you look at the disproportionate revenue, then it is quite a big gap.
“If you look at the Women’s Super League where we’ve made great strides, we’re still only about 0.5% of the annual revenue of the Premier League.
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“So there’s still a job to do in terms of the revenue coming in. And then obviously, that allows you to then pay more.
“Everyone’s investing ahead of revenue. And that’s the right thing to do. It’s a big growth part of the game. But there’s still more to do to grow the commercial pie.”
On the eve of this Women’s World Cup, the Lionesses expressed their “disappointment” that their talks on performance-related bonuses were unresolved.
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Negotiations are on hold until after the tournament – which is going the distance for England with Sunday’s final against Spain.
Mr Bullingham said: “We will get into that discussion with the players. If you step back, FIFA announced prize money relatively late going into the tournament and that meant that we didn’t have time to finalise our discussions with them.
“We agreed to park it rather than have discussion out here when everyone is focused on the tournament and we’ve done that.
“What’s most important is the players are incredibly focused, the mood in the camp’s great and relationships great.
“We’re very focused on winning together, and also growing the women’s game together.”
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Under a new FIFA scheme, players are receiving performance-related remuneration from the governing body via the national associations, with amounts increasing the deeper teams go in the tournament.
So, winning the World Cup could see each Lioness earn £212,000.
