Only nine national football federations out of the existing 211 have put players on an equal footing… salary.
A very closed club.
The latest to have taken this step is the American federation (of
soccer,
therefore) which will now offer identical contracts to men and women playing in the national team.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the US federation said it was "convinced that the way forward for all those involved and for the future of sport in the United States is through a single salary structure for the two national teams".
And elsewhere, where are we?
"We feel that things are moving on this ground"
It is true that women's football has enjoyed growing public interest for several years, particularly through international competitions such as the World Cup or the Champions League. If these tournaments are a showcase that highlights the talent of the players, they also shine the inequalities of treatment between the women's and men's teams. “We feel that things are moving on this ground all the same. The 2019 Women's World Cup (
Editor's note, won by American players
), where there were a lot of people in the stadiums, has finished pushing the idea that this had to change, ”analyzes Laurence Benoist, who was president of a (male) football club in R1 and was involved in the Feminization committees of the French Football Federation and the French Rugby Federation.
The American Football Federation will offer the same salaries to the players of the national football team: we are awaiting the same initiative from @FFF.
- Martial Le Boulh (@martialleboulh) September 15, 2021
Equal pay in the world of football, a real battle horse for Megan Rapinoe, the superstar of the American women's team.
In March 2021, she went to the White House to defend it against President Joe Biden.
To explain this discrimination, the famous player leaves little doubt: "I was devalued because I am a woman," she said after the meeting.
Twice world champion with the United States, the striker demanded, along with the entire women's football team, to be paid as much as their male counterparts, much better paid despite inferior sporting results.
In 2019, the international players had even attacked their federation to obtain parity, without success until then.
"Football is an economy and clubs are businesses"
Jessica Houara-d'Hommeaux, former French footballer and consultant, reacted on Twitter, after a debate broadcast on the program "Touche Pas à Mon Poste", relating to this news. "#TPMP debate: should footballers win like footballers? We must not confuse everything, football is an economy and clubs are businesses. Which club will come out with big checks when the return on investment is zero or even negative? Let's be realistic, ”she tweeted.
In addition to the inequality in the payment of bonuses and daily allowances paid by the national federations, there is also a large difference in the amounts of the grand prizes of international competitions between the male and female categories. The main argument used - in particular by Fifa - to explain these inequalities remains, in fact, the economic logic: men's football brings in much more thanks to the audience, TV rights, sponsors, revenue from ticket sales and of derivative products. But, according to some critics, these disparities are immense and too often unjustified.
“It's easy to find this argument to devalue the efforts that are being made in this area.
If the players do not earn as much, it is probably because they are not paid the same.
I prefer to see the problem in this sense, ”says Laurence Benoist, also treasurer of the NGO, Soroptimist International Union Française, which promotes female talent.
“At some point, you have to take a risk by investing money in them.
If the players have more money, they will be better prepared, so they will have better results, more visibility, which brings more money.
It's a virtuous circle, but you have to take this risk upstream, ”warns the expert.
Ireland joins this very closed club
Before the United States, Ireland joined, in September 2021, the handful of national federations committing to equal pay. The footballers of the Eire national team now receive the same match bonuses at international matches. For this, the players have decided to lower the amount of their bonuses so that their colleagues on the women's team can receive the same. The captain of the Irish women's team, Katie McCabe, was delighted with this
"
big step forward
"
: "It's a big day for Irish football. (…) We have shown the world what can be accomplished by being united, by offering the same opportunities to international players
”
, said the Arsenal women's team forward, stressing the
“
courage
”
shown by her male counterparts.
In addition to these two countries, only England, Australia, Brazil, Finland, Norway, New Zealand and the Netherlands have reached this milestone in football equality.
EQUAL PAY AGREED 🇮🇪
A historic day for Irish football as the FAI agrees equal pay deal with WNT & MNT squads ahead of their World Cup qualifiers 🤝
Read More 👉 https://t.co/6Hiw85DxSS#WeAreOne |
#COYBIG |
#COYGIG pic.twitter.com/w8N0JXhC10
- FAIreland ⚽️🇮🇪 (@FAIreland) August 30, 2021
In their book, “Like the boys? The economy of women's football ”, (Éditions Rue d'Ulm), Luc Arrondel and Richard Duhautois recall that the issue of equal“ remuneration ”between women and men is not the same depending on whether it is federations or clubs. For the players of a national team, equal treatment of internationals is legitimate: the federations can quite choose a policy of redistribution between players. For club football, the problem is different. The ratio between the average salaries of men and women is 27. The budgets are far from being the same: in 2019, the total budget of Ligue 1 was 1.9 billion euros and that of of Division 1 (French women's championship) of 19 million euros, or 100 times less.
The level of salaries therefore follows that of budgets, which depend heavily on television rights and sponsorship. In the mid-1970s, it was around 2,500 euros for a player, about thirty times less than in Ligue 1 today. On the other hand, it is comparable to the average salary of an elite footballer today.