Historic US$30k payday for Reggae Girlz

AP:

A GROUP of players across the globe asked FIFA late last year to increase the prize money for this summer’s Women’s World Cup. There had been pleas from the women to boost those funds before, but this time it was different.

The players not only wanted a prize pool equal with the men’s World Cup, they also sought a guarantee that a percentage of the prize money would go directly to the players themselves.

While it wasn’t true equity with the men’s World Cup, FIFA indeed raised the prize pool for the women’s tournament by more than three times that of the 2019 event in France.

But more than that, football’s governing body agreed in June that a chunk of those funds should be paid straight to the players – all 732 of them. Every player will earn at least US$30,000, with the amount increasing the further along that teams progress in the tournament. The 23 players in the title-winning squad will each get $270,000.

That’s significant for many of the players, who in some cases don’t have club teams that pay salaries, are semi-pros or even amateurs. FIFA released a report last year that said the average salary for female players was US$14,000 a year.

And not only that, the conditions the players will experience on the ground in Australia and New Zealand – such as travel and accommodations – are now equitable to those provided for the men.

A $152-million fund was set for the first 32-team Women’s World Cup. The total covers prize money, team preparation and payments to players’ clubs. That’s a big boost from the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, which had a $40 million fund, with $30 million in prize money.

In contrast, the prize money pool for the men’s World Cup last year in Qatar was $440 million. The nations that got knocked out after the group stage made $9 million apiece.

The prize money pool trickles down to all participating teams. The 16 nations that exit the group stage will get a total of $2.25 million apiece from FIFA – $690,000 to share among the players and $1,560,000 for the federation.

FIFA will pay $10.5 million to the title-winning nation. The majority of that, $6.21 million, will be distributed among the players with the remaining $4.29 million going to the federation.

In addition to helping pay the players, the teams and federations that haven’t often seen the big stage will benefit, too. Each team is receiving nearly $1 million in preparation funds.