The Women’s World Cup prize pool totals $110 million this year, compared to $30 million the last time the women played a World Cup in 2019. The pay increase is largely due to the efforts of the U.S. Women’s team and their counterparts around the world to highlight the gender gap in the sport and to demand equal pay. Despite the considerable increase, the money allocated for the women’s teams lags far behind the $440 million prize awarded to the Men’s World Cup players last year.
In the United States, the women’s team will also receive a bonus from their deal to split total U.S. soccer earnings with the men’s team. According to the negotiated agreement, the men’s and women’s soccer teams split their winnings evenly. Even though the U.S. men were eliminated in the round of 16 in the 2022 Men’s World Cup, they still were awarded more money than this year’s Women’s World Cup champions will receive.
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Here’s how the split works. If the U.S. women’s team wins the World Cup, they’d be awarded a $4.29 million team prize in addition to $270,000 per player, totaling $10.5 million. The $10.5 million gets pooled with the $13 million the men took home for their finish in the 2022 Men’s World Cup, totaling $23.5 million. The U.S. Soccer Federation would take their share, and then the men’s and women’s teams would evenly split the remainder.
For years, men’s greater pay was rationalized because men had better skills that could attract larger audiences. However, women’s soccer has been steadily growing in popularity. FIFA, soccer’s governing body, says 1.12 billion viewers tuned in to watch the last women’s World Cup, and organizers are aiming for 2 billion this year. If they meet these expectations, the women’s viewership will exceed half of the men’s audience, yet the women are only paid a quarter of the men’s prize money.
As for whether the men’s game is more skilled and fun to watch than the women’s, a viral ad for the French women’s national team definitively answers that question. When the ad begins, it appears to be a highlight reel from the French men’s national team, Les Bleus. In reality, the male soccer players’ faces have been superimposed onto the bodies of their female counterparts. Viewers believe they are watching Les Bleus, when they are instead viewing clips from Les Bleues, the women’s team. The ad makes it clear that the women’s game is every bit as exciting and skilled as the men’s.
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In an effort to increase pay equity, FIFA had also taken steps to guarantee that every female World Cup player received at least $30,000. The direct payments from FIFA were deemed life-changing for the athletes, whose average annual take home is a mere $14,000. In addition to promising that each player would take home at least $30,000 in prize money, FIFA indicated that championship-winning players would receive a direct payment of $270,000.
But earlier this week, FIFA backed down from its promise to ensure each World Cup player would be paid directly. Wednesday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said he could not guarantee that the member federations would distribute the payments promised to every player at the Women’s World Cup. “Whatever payments we do, we will go through the associations, and then the associations will, of course, make the relevant payments to their own players,” Infantino told the Associated Press. He cited complications due to residency and taxation that he claims are best handled by individual federations.
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The good news is that FIFA is aiming for pay equity in the 2025/26 World Cup cycle. If they come through, that would mean a 300% pay increase for the women. But more prize money doesn’t just mean fuller pockets for the female players. It means countries will no longer prioritize the men’s national team over the women’s. And it means the women’s team will garner the respect they deserve on the field.
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