It is possible that as she walked the streets of London, the city where she lived, no one recognized her and she could go completely unnoticed.
He is not the most popular player in football according to the number of followers on social networks, nor is he the best according to awards such as Ballon d’Or and best player.
On the other hand, what can Australians say Sam Kerr It’s now The highest paid football player in the world.
At least considering the salary he received from the company ChelseaHis club, he has dominated English football in recent years.
However, how much does kerr make per yearaccording to various professional sports media reports, $513,000, That’s just a quarter of Kylian Mbappe’s weekly earnings at Paris Saint-Germain.
It shows that despite the strides women’s football has made in recent years, there are still huge differences between men and women in the world of ball.
Highest paid players and players
This inequality is even worse when accounting for the income each other earns in sponsorships, brand partnerships, and individual businesses.
While Kerr earns just over $2 million a year through contracts with Nike and EA Sports, Mbappe’s earnings will rise to $128 million, according to a report published this year by the magazine. Forbes.
Taller will even feature Lionel Messi and Cristiano RonaldoTwo of the great protagonists of 21st-century football, despite their twilight years, have each won multi-million dollar contracts to play in less competitive leagues such as the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Take Ronaldo, for example, who is said to earn over $200 million a year.
break the mold
for one Equal pay for men and women in football It has improved in recent years, fueled by events in the United States, where the women’s team has historically been much more successful than the men’s.
A group of 28 national team players battled to win their fourth World Cup in 2019 american football (USA Soccer Association) “Institutionalized Sexism”.
Years of judicial action have passed until February 2022 Historic labor agreement signed This ensures that male and female team members are paid equally.
Although the prize money for the men’s tournament is much higher, as we will see later, Everything created by man and woman in one pot And this is distributed equally among all players.
Therefore, the 23 players who represented the United States at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, even if they were eliminated in the first round, would receive a higher bonus than the football players who still won the championship. August 20th.
Although taking into account that FIFA has greatly increased the amount of prize money for this World Cup, the prize money of 110 million U.S. dollars will be distributed, compared with the 30 million U.S. dollars for the World Cup in France four years ago.
Yes, a significant increase, but Still well below the $440 million awarded for the World Cup in Qatar last year.
FIFA assured that this is a process and that these differences are being resolved.
One example is that this year, for the first time, some of the prize money will be used for the direct benefit of the players, as each player will receive at least $30,000 for participating in the World Cup.
Prize money increases as teams advance to the round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals, until each champion is capped at $270,000.
Gianni InfantinoThe FIFA president has promised Aim for equal prize money for 2026 (men’s) and 2027 (women’s) World Cups.
huge potential
FIFA welcomes the growth potential of women’s football, which will be a very good revenue stream for its coffers.
“2019 is already in France Women’s football is seen as offering a great opportunityRomy Gai, commercial director of football’s governing body, admitted last week.
“That’s why we decided to sell the (transmission) rights separately. The decision was completely justified,” added Gai, referring to the fact that the event is being broadcast in more than 200 territories around the world.
As if that wasn’t enough, records for World Cup ticket sales have already been broken, with FIFA calculating: About 2 billion people will interact Somehow, as the game progressed, the numbers doubled from four years ago.
However, Feels like there’s still a long way to go.
The US situation is the exception rather than the rule, and few countries are moving in a similar direction.
Just two days before the opening of the World Cup, the Australian team members issued a statement criticizing the disparity in the men’s and women’s World Cup prize money.besides In fact, most countries have no organizations representing the female athlete community Promote improved working conditions.
“We all want our players to be 100 per cent professional and that should be the legacy of this World Cup,” said Women’s Football Australia commissioner Nick Garcia.
“If we want to see intergenerational change, all players from business partners to government must commit to the growth of the sport,” he asked.
The president of the country’s Football Federation, James Johnson, admitted that regarding FIFA’s increase in bonuses, “although it has not reached Australia’s level, it is an improvement and there is more room for continuous improvement.”
started from the bottom
To Brenda Elsey, historian at Hofstra University in New York and the author of this book Futbolera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America, The biggest obstacle is not FIFA, but the national football associations.
Elsey explained in an interview: “They are the ones who decide at the level of each country what to do and who, together with other countries, decide the rules that FIFA enforces.” bbc world.
Despite FIFA’s promise to reward each of the 736 footballers who participated in the World Cup, some players said after receiving the news: Some people doubt whether the money will really reach them.
The agency has told that payments will be made through the national federation and will monitor compliance with the pledge, but could not confirm when or how that process will take place.
Elsey believes the challenge for women’s football is to build a solid foundation of conditions on which to build its future, which could be a “billion dollar” industry, according to a recently published study in the UK.
One example is that we struggle to find information on the earnings of the world’s highest paid female players, as opposed to the extensive documentation on wages of their male counterparts.
“It’s hard because Compensation type is not a salary for most people. They are fees, something informal,” historians tell us.
“That’s the biggest job challenge. Because in addition to paying higher wages, even those who are paid more are informal, so it’s hard to fight for equal terms if it’s not even a job legally. ,” he concluded.
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