Analysts, fans and sports stars have no doubt: last weekend’s final between England and Germany is a giant step forward for women’s football.
In recent years this modality has gained more and more interest and was confirmed with the 87 .100 spectators who watched the final from Wembley Stadium in London.
It is the largest attendance at a men’s or women’s European Championship final in the history of this sport, although it is also true that the tickets were much cheaper than what men’s finals usually cost.
Despite the growth of women’s football, the gap between what women earn and men soccer players is still wide.
It is true that, taking the example of England, both men and women who they play for the national team get paid £2,000 Pounds Sterling ($2,434 dollars) per match from 2020.
But the situation changes quite a bit when clubs, sponsors and bonuses come into play.
In this analysis we will take the situation in English football as an example, although many of the metrics applied here could be extrapolated to other countries that have professional football leagues. women’s soccer.
£200. in one year vs. £200. in a week
It is reported that English players will receive £55. Pounds Sterling ($75,930 dollars) each as a bonus for winning the tournament . In total, that adds up to £1.3 million sterling ($1.58 million dollars), considerably less than the £5 million sterling pounds ($6 million dollars) that the men’s team would have received if they had won the last European Championship against Italy.
At the individual level, the differences are even greater.
Leah Williamson, the captain of England, is estimated to have earned £200. ($2,486 dollars) in total last season.
It is almost eight times the average salary in the UK, but when compared to what Harry Kane, the captain of the English men’s team, earns, it is almost negligible.
Kane earns the same amount of money in a week as Williamson does in a whole year.
And that the Englishman is not the highest paid player in the Premier League. Cristiano Ronaldo, the Manchester United star, gets paid £420,000 ($487,000 dollars) per week according to estimates.
Given the impact of last Sunday’s women’s final, could the gap begin to close?
Still there is a long way to go.
100 times more than women
According to a BBC analysis , an average Women’s Super League player earns £47,000 pounds sterling ($57, dollars) per year. The analysis is based on the results published by seven of the 12 women’s league teams on the salaries of players and associated personnel, including coaches.
A comparable figure for an average male Premier League player is not easy to calculate, and is biased by over £12 million pounds sterling ( $24 million dollars) negotiated by Cristiano Ronaldo and Kevin De Bruyne at Manchester United and Manchester City, respectively.
But the figures compiled by Deloitte on salaries at three mid-table Premier League clubs suggest that Leicester City, for example, paid to his team an average of £6.4 million, Wolverhampton Wanderers £4.7 million and West Ham £4.3 million.
If we take the Wolverhampton Wanderers figure as the average of the 20 teams, men win some 100 times more than women.
Why is there such a difference?
The key is in the amount of money that the clubs contribute in the salary of their players.
Take the example of Manchester City. The men’s team is the reigning Premier League champion and reported £571 millions of benefits in the season 2020-1536.
The club allocated a 50 % of that amount to player salaries according to Deloitte. A total of £250 millions.
The team is made up of 30 players, which makes up an average of £11, 8 million per soccer player.
Let’s compare now with the women’s section of Manchester City.
Your accounts reveal a turnover of £2.9 million for 2020-21, while that their wage bill is reported at £3.3 million.
That translates into an annual average of around £75. by player and staff of 44 people.
Where does the money come from?
Football clubs generate funds in three different ways: ticket sales, transmission rights and commercial agreements such as sponsorships.
Analyzing the statistics published by Deloitte, in the men’s game ticket sales represent approximately 15% of income and the 85% remaining is divided between television fees and sponsorships.
The as Average attendance at Premier League matches is 30.000 spectators, while in Women’s Super League matches , the average audience for the most recent season reached 1.931 according to the Football Association.
Tickets for men’s matches are much more expensive than for women. An adult who wants to watch Chelsea in a Premier match should be prepared to spend at least £62.
The women’s team can be seen for a fixed £9 ticket. Even at that low price, tickets rarely sell out, while seat availability for men’s soccer sells out weeks in advance.
The precise details of the sponsorships are more difficult to find out, since the clubs normally do combined deals for men’s and women’s teams.
But it is a certainty that the sponsors pay mainly to be on men’s t-shirts.
When it comes to television, the Premier League attracts an estimated £11.000 millions of a variety of broadcasters, including substantial overseas earnings.
By comparison, the Women’s Super League is currently in the midst of a UK TV deal worth just £8m a year.
These are hard figures, but they are due in part to the relative youth of professional women’s football. The England Women’s Super League was established in 2011 and only became fully professional in 2018.
The success and popularity of the champions of the European Championship should imply that the p Upcoming television and sponsorship agreements are negotiated upwards.
In terms of attendance at matches, the Football Association has set itself an average attendance of 6.000 viewers for 2024, which certainly seems achievable.
More fans will mean more money and that will lead to higher salaries for the players.
Will Sunday’s game make a difference?
It is supposed to make a big difference.
The European Championship of 2022 marked the first time sponsorship was offered for just the women’s tournament, rather than just including it in the men’s tournament as in the past.
Nielsen Sports analysts estimate that attracting large s names like Visa, Heineken, Lego and Pepsi helped increase UEFA’s revenue stream between 25 Y 33 million pounds ($30 and $28 million dollars) per year.
That should be just the beginning.
The success of English players should help boost salaries at giants of European women’s football such as Olympique Lyon in France or the Women’s Soccer League in the United States, where star players earn more than £ 311. per season.
Greater investment in grassroots football is also expected.
In over the last decade, about £ have been invested in England million from the National Lottery in women’s football.
During the European Championship, a further £2 million was allocated for a new grassroots program for girls this summer .
But there is a revealing fact of Sunday’s victory: the 87.87 spectators broke the record for attendance at a European Championship match, male or female.
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That seems to tell its own story of how women’s football has conquered the hearts of fans.
But keep in mind that tickets for the final started from just £15. Tickets for last year’s Euro Men’s Final started at £250 with the number of entries sold limited to two-thirds of capacity due to Covid rules.
In other words, despite the undisputed recent success of the English and women’s football in general, they are still far from generating the rewards financial that attracts the male game.
200000
Also read:
– England is consecrated with the Women’s European Championship, but the real victory is women’s football
– The story of Kateryna Monzul: from escape from the war in Ukraine to whistle the Final of the Women’s Euro Cup
– The assistance of the Women’s Euro Cup skyrockets to 487.683 spectators