There’s been so much chatter and debate over the last 2 years on the topic of pay equity in the game of Football (the real one not hand-egg). It conflicts me to read all of the commentary and being thrown around , mostly by people who have little or no context to the way football is organised on our planet.
The very first thing that needs to be clarified is that Football is an industry, not a sport. The second thing is that Football is not only grossly un-fair and un-just, it is also ridiculously corrupt. I don’t know exactly at what level the corruption starts to ruin the game, I don’t think it’s at the small local club level that introduces most players to the game, but it’s absolutely corrupt at the Global international level that we call FIFA. I imagine the corruption occurs at different points along that curve depending on what country you’re in.
Unlike the NHL, NFL , NBA etc. there is no draft system in Football. Players as young as 8 or 9 years old are open to signing contracts with football clubs (with parental supervision of course). Players are generally not traded, but players under contract are Sold to other clubs. FIFA only allows these transactions twice per year (JAN, August). Players will seek to be sold either because they’ve developed beyond the limitations of their club, or perhaps because they haven’t developed enough. Everything is Football is measured against the almighty dollar, there’s even websites that put monetary figures to describe a players value in a purchase transaction. There are no league minimum salaries.
You only get paid what a team decides they want to pay within a competitive marketplace.
It’s grossly politically incorrect to even suggest that different pay scales should exist, differentiated only by gender. I get that in Most realms certainly I support laws that would eliminate the institutional biases that have seen men get paid more than women. Typically we add the catch “For work of equal value”. No one is suggesting that everyone gets paid the same amount as everyone else, that I believe is hard core communism.
It’s within the context of examining the term “Equal value” that things get nasty. If we’re going to define value in terms of trophies, win loss percentages, goals, assists, challenges won, sprints per game and chances created, well then our National Women’s Football team certainly deserve not only pay equity, but probably pay superiority. They have been very successful within their own gender restricted competitions. But Football doesn’t measure value in these terms. Football measures value in the same terms it measures everything. Dollars, Euro’s and British Pound Sterling. Is Cristiano Ronaldo worth 270 million a year as a football player ? Nope not at all. Is he worth it as a marketable commodity, probably. His mere presence on a team or in a league sells Merchandise, Tickets and attracts Corporate sponsorship. Ronaldo is most certainly past his prime, in fact he failed to be attractive to ANY of Europes Top teams, even though he as rumoured to have been willing to play for far far less money than he’s typically earned. Is it fair to Halaand, Musiala, Mbappe, Richarlison or any of the dozens’ perhaps hundreds of players who are currently better at this sport than Ronaldo ? Nope not fair, not equitable, not even close. But the Ronaldo contract in Saudi Arabia didn’t yield even a single player asking their clubs for a raise, because they all knew that what you get paid is only a reflection of your value within a very localised scope. A Football players value and salary are directly related to what revenue they can generate for their club. Winning and scoring are great, but they don’t translate directly into dollars.
Our men qualified for the world cup in Qatar, they immediately got 1.5 million, they got another 9 million for playing 3 group stage games even though they lost and were eliminated. In 2026 They might not get the 1.5 for qualifying even though they will be in the tournament regardless as host nation, but they will get at least 9 million for their group stage appearances. In comparison the Women’s team won the Olympics, for this they generate zero dollars in prize money, their best world cup finish (4th). generated a little under 1 million. FIFA recently announced that they would double the total prize money for the women from 15 million to 30 million, so moving forward more opportunity to generate revenue, Keep in mind that the Women’s game between 2018 and 2022 increased their FIFA revenues not by a comparable 100% factor to the prize money increase, but rather by a factor of 18%. Fifa World Cup prize money for the Men (440 million) represents approximately 6% of the money earned by FIFA for the world cup tournament (7.4 Billion). Relax FIFA doesn’t just pocket the other 7 Billion Dollars, most although not all is distributed globally to support the sport in developing countries (including Canada) it pays for Fields, equipment, shirts Coach and player training etc etc. FIFA does of course skim a fair sum off the top and the skimming continues around the globe, but as I said they’re totally corrupt. If we ask FIFA what the women’s world cup generates, they just won’t say, not because it’s such a big number, but because it’s such a small one. Less than 13 million was paid for the TV broadcast rights globally. It’s safe to assume that FIFA loses money on the women’s world cup after they pay out the prize money. It’s hard to argue against that fact that in a paid for value generated scenario, the women make proportionally more than the men already.
If you’ve read this far and you’re just getting angry at my obtuse examination of the financial aspect of the game without recognising the un-wokeness of my explanation. I’ll say this. It is what it is. Football is a corrupt money driven, un-caring and mysogynist thing. Infantino (Head of FiFA). made some ridiculous statements during Qatar, He doesn’t care, he doesn’t have to. He knows we’ll still watch, still pay, still cheer, still cry and still lose our minds when we watch a great game. Well a great men’s game.
At the International level Players often have several countries that they can chose to represent, the rules are rather loose but essentially up until you play a FIFA sanctioned competitive game for a country, you can pretty much play for any country you want to. Individual countries have their own citizenship or residency requirements, but FIFA doesn’t really dictate in this area.
But Canada Should be different, Canada should be leaders. Yeah we should be, that would be nice. But realise that if we do that. we’re just putting nails in the coffin of the men’s program, Soccer Canada is 1 pot of money, Paying equal wages will unavoidably mean using the revenue generated from the men’s program to further subsidise the women’s program. Alphonzo Davies CHOSE to play for Canada, he had other choices. Owen Hargreaves made a different choice (I’ll never really forgive him for that). Our Pay equity decision won’t alter the path’s of Any of the men on our current team, but what about the 10 or 15 kids in this Country that are showing real potential to rival the skills and Careers of Davies and Hargreaves ? Will they chose Canada ? They want to play for a Country that competes, it takes money to compete and currently there’s no trophies or record books for the Country with the best gender combined Trophy case (Germany would win that competition FYI). England announced an equal pay scale for their National players, 3 days later Jamal Musiala announced he’d be playing for Germany instead. If you don’t know who Jamal Musiala is, I’ll probably never convince you of anything related to Football.
7 years ago I flat out couldn’t watch women’s football, it was just painful. Germany Brazil and the USA and even Canada (Sinclair alone) have arguably the best female players ever. But until recently none of these teams played a game that resembled real top-flight football. They have improved at a rate that’s almost unbelievable. They occasionally pass with vision, defend with structure and even, although rarely, finish with the joy and beauty that make football the greatest game on the planet. But they have a long road of further development ahead of them. I believe that as a spectator attraction they will build their game to a level that people will pay for, pay for tickets, pay for streaming subscriptions, pay for merchandise. When that happens the money will follow, but it hasn’t happened yet. The salaries paid to men in this sport didn’t precede the revenue that their sport generates, in fact despite the ridiculous amounts paid to some, the men still receive a a far smaller share of total revenue than what NHL , NFL And NBA players are getting.
In my opinion all national footballers. should get and equal base salary that compensates them for the time and travel involved while they are training for international FIFA recognised competitive games, that’s about 12 weeks a year on average. There you go, perfectly balanced equal pay. Prize money should be split 70/30 between the association and the players in each respective competition. This isn’t a revolutionary formula, it’s being adopted by Germany, Brazil, and Spain. The US women’s program is the anomaly, their TV ratings are admirably close to their male counterparts, even though their in person ticket sales are still less than 1/4 of the men. In Canada the men are still generating 6-7x in Merchandise, Ticket sales and TV revenue.
Women will certainly never be able to play the game of football in a competitive manner against men, in fact the US women’s World Cup winning super team would lose to just about every european mens’ U17 squad, and probably lose to most of the U15 squads too (they have a 1-0-4 record against US men’s U15). However they can look forward to a day when Women can coach, manage and Referee at equal levels. We’ve already seen examples I think Maria Von-Tesslenburg and Bibi Steinhaus are in many ways superior to some of their male counterparts. I get frustrated to watch women play in 2023, when the Coaches are not quite there and the REf’s are just plain bad. A faster road to equality would be to address these deficiencies.
At the end of the day if our Women choose job action, they’re Embarrass Soccer Canada for a few days, maybe a week, or until the Men’s team plays a competitive match and scores a few goals, but they won’t change the financial realities of their dilemma.