The average annual salary for a female professional football player globally is USD 10,900 (GBP 8,400, AUD 17,000), says Fifa’s yearly report on the women’s game, a figure skewed by a small number of top clubs.
According to the Setting the Pace, Fifa Benchmarking Report on Women’s Football, which was released on Monday, the average salary among the teams that Fifa designated as Tier 1, which includes 41 clubs from 16 nations, was approximately $24,030. On the other hand, 16 of those top clubs paid an average gross salary of more than $50,000. Around $120,000 was the highest of those salaries. However, at Tier 2 and Tier 3 clubs, the average gross salary was $4,361 and $2,805, respectively. “There is a need for players of a certain standard to earn a reliable and sufficient income solely from playing, reducing their dependence on secondary sources of income and allowing them to dedicate the time required to play at a higher level,” the report said.
Tier 1 teams also had the longest player contracts, usually between one and three years, with the highest salaries for contracts between two and three years. However, Tier 3 teams were more likely to offer contracts that were less than three months long. A longer contract enables players to commit to a club and a location, giving them more stability so they can focus on their footballing careers,” said the report.
The Fifa report also highlighted attendance as an area of concern.
Tier 1 teams averaged 1,713 fans, while Tier 2 and 3 teams had 480 and 380 fans, respectively, when Arsenal played Manchester United at Emirates Stadium last year in front of a Women’s Super League record crowd of 60,160 people. Arsenal was one of the 23% of clubs that played some games at a stadium other than their home ground. They played five home league games at Meadow Park, which has a seating capacity of 1,700 and a total capacity of 4,500, and the other games were at the Emirates. According to the report, “for clubs in Tier 1, the average attendance at the other stadium was typically double that at the regular stadium, indicating that the sport can occasionally attract larger audiences.” Women are under-represented in coaching roles, with 22% of head coaches across all tiers being female. Women make up 42% of officials, with 57% of them working in Tier 1 leagues and 25% working in Tiers 2 and 3. Fifa president Gianni Infantino said the report helps clubs, leagues, and stakeholders gain a better understanding of the factors that drive success.
“There is still more work to be done to unlock its full potential,” Infantino stated. “The steps that have been taken in recent years have been remarkable.” Surveys for the Setting the Pace report were sent to 135 leagues and 1,518 clubs, with a total of 677 clubs in 90 leagues responding.
Fifa tiers were determined by factors such as whether the league had a club licensing system, the number of a league’s players who featured in the 2023 Women’s World Cup, and a member association’s total budget for women’s football among others.
