WOMEN’S FOOTBALL AND THE PAY GAP
The debate surrounding equal pay across the globe has become increasingly louder following revelations that, women in certain industries are paid less for equal work done in contrast with their male counterparts. From the corporate world to the entertainment industry right down to the sports industry, the discussion has raged on and on.
In 2019, the list of highest paid athletes in the World was released by Forbes. There was only one woman listed in the top 100, Serena Williams, who came in 63rd place, earning an estimated $29 million. Narrowing focus to the footballing context, the picture painted is even grimmer as there are no female footballers in the list of top 20 highest earning athletes.
The buildup to the 2019 Women’s World Cup unsurprisingly came with a fresh wave of protests for equal pay in football, juxtaposing the $30m total prize money (a $15m increase from the previous edition) against the $400m pot at the 2018 men’s World Cup in Russia. The total money in both cases, is split among all participating teams, based on performance. This means that the winner of the Women’s World Cup wins $4m, while the France national team took home a grand prize of $38m for winning the 2018 World Cup. This shows a monstrous pay gap of $34m between the winners of the two competitions.
Reporting on this issue is, however, often without context and frankly, dishonest. The 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada, for instance, reportedly brought in $73 million in revenue. This pales in comparison to the $6 billion revenue raked in during the 2018 men’s World Cup in Russia. This means that while the women were given 41% of their World Cup revenue, the men had to settle for 7% of theirs. This basically means that despite the huge gap that currently exists, the men are actually earning a significantly smaller percentage of their own revenue than the women on the international stage.
But making this a FIFA problem only addresses a minor part of the problem and not the actual root. This is because FIFA does not employ footballers. This seems to be a common misconception among many non-football fans who have taken an interest in this discussion. Players belong to their clubs and are paid by their clubs. Let me make a simple analogy; Employees (footballers) of different banks (the clubs) are invited by the Bank of Ghana (FIFA) to a seminar. The Bank of Ghana pays each employee an attendance fee for attending and participating in this seminar. At the end of the seminar, the employees go back to their respective banks. This is similar to how football and the World Cup works. The money given to the players by FIFA is not their salary. Their salaries are paid by their clubs. Additionally, it is important to note that less than 5% of footballers receive money ‘directly’ from FIFA over the course of their careers, since money from FIFA is limited to players who feature for their national teams in FIFA sanctioned competitions.
Football clubs are run like companies. Even clubs who aren’t profit driven and primarily prioritize success and fan satisfaction over capital, still aim to make money to keep the fans happy and the ship afloat. Most women’s football clubs are formed as female branches of a main male football club. There are hardly any women’s football clubs that are self-built. This means that generally, the seed money for women’s football to begin with, is sourced from the men’s game. This in itself creates a problem of being the ‘afterthought’. However, being the secondary team is not the reason for the pay gap, only a small factor.
Olympique Lyonnais Women is arguably the most dominant team in sports currently across both genders. The team has won the last fourteen French league titles, the last four Women’s Champions league titles. They have enjoyed far superior success than their male counterparts, who are approaching their 10th year without league success. However, the highest earner on the Lyon women’s team, Ada Hederberg, also the current best female footballer, earned approximately $400,000 in 2018. The highest earner on the men’s team, Memphis Depay, who is currently not even among the best five players in France, earned approximately $4.6 million. The average player on the Lyon men’s team earned $1.5 million in 2018. There is one simple explanation for this. During the 2018/19 league season, the Lyon men’s team had an average attendance of 45,000 per match. Lyon women recorded average crowds of 1,600. The Women’s Champions League final, which Lyon Women won, and is arguably the biggest match of the European Women’s footballing calendar, had an attendance of approximately 20,000. There were 50,000 fans present at the Santiago Bernabeu to witness Eden Hazard’s unveiling as a Real Madrid player earlier this month.
Crossing over to the Spanish women’s league, the record attendance was smashed last season with the 60,000 capacity crowd that watched Atletico Madrid women face Barcelona women. A hugely impressive tally, despite the fact that a large chunk of tickets were given out for free, while the remaining were offered at hugely discounted prices. This shows that there could be an appeal for big one-off matches in women’s club football. However, football clubs need more than just one or two high capacity matches per season. Much more. Matches between Hearts of Oak and Kotoko in Ghana, still pull crowds of almost 40,000 regularly. In other matches however, it is not unusual to see crowds of 500 and below, despite tickets going for as little as $1. This is the same with Atletico Madrid women, who averaged crowds of 600 in regular matches over the course of the season, despite the 60,000 mammoth crowd against Barcelona.
Contrary to what people may think, in football, success does not always determine revenue. Interest determines revenue. For example, last season, Huddersfield Town, the bottom placed team in the English Premier League, earned more money through their league position and TV rights, than Ajax, the winners of the Dutch League. The average team in the English Championship, a second-tier league, made more money than the average team in the Dutch top division.
Football clubs have diverse sources of revenue; ticket sales, sponsorships, jersey sales, TV rights etc. Every single one of these is determined by one thing; fan interest. The main aims of sponsors and investors are, to be seen and to reap profits. It is for this reason that the Ghanaian Premier League went for more than three years without a headline sponsor, prior to the ill-fated Zylofon Cash deal. This is because at it stands now, it league is not a profitable venture. Previous headline sponsors can bear testimony to this. Investing in the product is no guarantee of significantly increased interest.
Thus, for these same reasons, the hugely successful Lyon Women’s team receives far less commercial income than their less successful male counterparts, because the men’s team still manages to attract more than twenty times the interest of the women’s team. For this reason also, Memphis Depay earned ten times more than Ada Hederberg in 2018, while she also earned over 100 times more than the average male player in the Ghanaian Premier League.
Financial reports from the English Women’s Super League for the past season indicate that every single team in the league operated at a loss. These losses were absorbed by the men’s teams, who perform the role of a parent club. This format is replicated across women’s club football. Therefore, as things stand, there is little to no profit to be made from running a women’s football club.
The numbers are not meant to be analysed as male vs female, but rather, revenue vs revenue. In this light, there is no differentiating between male and female. It is just a long ranking of clubs and leagues. When observed from this angle, the top league in women’s football does not rank among the top 50 leagues in the men’s game in terms of revenue.
Comparing salaries of the top women’s teams and the top male teams may seem like a valid comparison, but is there a logical and equitable basis for it? My answer is no. The teams are not competing directly alongside or against each other. There is no hidden money belonging to female footballers that is being withheld from them.
So, on what basis does one compare the top teams in the men’s game with the top teams in the women’s game? Definitely not based on football ability or success, considering how the Under-15 boys team of FC Dallas defeated the US Women’s National Team, the best women’s national team in the world, by five goals to two in a friendly match. Taking into consideration the fact that the FC Dallas senior team does not rank among the top 100 teams in football, let alone their under-15s. So no, they are not playing on the same level, contrary to what the mainstream media would have you believe. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact.
Many skeptics will argue that a tool that can be used to close the huge gap in revenue is marketing, as it has been used in other industries. But this ignores the different dynamics of this unique situation. Most men are interested in sports to begin with while most women are not. This is why even in female sports; the major fan base comprises of male fans. This means that basic marketing strategies in this context are not straightforward. They face an uphill battle to try and convince women to take an interest in football in the first place, before they can even zero that interest in on women’s football. Without this, the main fan base for women’s football remains the fraction of fans who already support men’s football but choose to support a women’s team in addition. Women’s football doesn’t just need recycled fans of men’s football. To close the financial gap, it needs to induce an entirely new market of football fans, who do not see women’s football as their secondary option.
So how do we accelerate growth in the women’s game? By showing interest. Hard interest. By picking a women’s team and supporting them as passionately as one would with a men’s team. Not only with words. Watch their matches. Tweet about them. Pick your favorite female footballer and buy her jersey. Attend matches. If you can’t physically attend them, stream them. Live the sport. This is what attracts investment and boosts both matchday and commercial income. Ask a random football fan which two teams played in the 1998 Men’s World Cup final, and then ask the same person which teams competed in the 2015 Women’s World Cup final, or even where it was hosted. How many people even knew who Ada Hederberg was ten minutes ago? The difference is telling. The sport needs fanatics to thrive.
This piece is not to deny the fact that sexism exists in football. It manifests in many different ways. Certain female footballers in the past, for example, have complained about the patronizing way by which they are supported. Their defeats and mistakes do not face the same criticism as is the case in men’s football. Almost as though participation awards are enough for them. I call it the ‘at least you tried’ syndrome. It promotes the notion that women are emotionally weaker and therefore cannot handle criticism the same way. Almost ten years on from Asamoah Gyan’s penalty miss against Uruguay, he still faces regular scathing criticism from Ghanaian football fans. Many female footballers want to be held to these same standards.
Sexism does exist in football. It is, however, not the reason for the wage gap.
Written by @SmylyThe3rd
