By Boluwatife Badmus
Players at the Women’s World Cup will be guaranteed at least 30,000 dollars each after FIFA decided to disburse some of the prize money to individuals rather than national federations.
All 23 members of the winning team will take home 270,000 dollars each, part of a 110 million dollars total prize pool that is roughly 300 per cent higher than what FIFA offered for the 2019 tournament.
The 30,000 dollars minimum directed prize money is more than twice the average salary of 14,000 dollars for paid players surveyed in FIFA’s 2022 benchmarking report.
In March, FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, pledged at the FIFA Congress that organisers would direct prize money towards the players, a first for the women’s tournament, which kicks off on July 20 in Australia and New Zealand.
For the upcoming Women’s World Cup, member-associations will also receive increased funding based on performance, with winners taking 4.29 million dollars home and delegations earning 1.56 million dollars for participating in the group stage.
The total performance-based prize funds still significantly trail what was on offer at the men’s tournament last year, where 440 million dollars total prize fund was awarded.
FIFA has made it clear to national federations that it expects that the amount retained by member-associations would be reinvested in their footballing activities, including coaching staff, grassroots projects, youth national teams and women’s football capacity-building programmes.
FIFPRO said the news “represents not only the outcome of tremendous global collective action by 150 national team players, but a constructive negotiation with FIFA over the past months.”
“They have listened to the voice of the players and we have taken steps toward greater gender equity in our game at the highest levels,” the global soccer players union said in a statement.
