Women's soccer: The dream of fair pay

When Megan Rapinoe speaks, people listen. She and her teammates have won titles, filled stadiums, and broken television ratings records. Yet they are paid less than their male counterparts in the US.

Rapinoe has even taken the issue to the White House, paying new US president Joe Biden a visit. "Despite these victories, I was devalued, disrespected and dismissed because I am a woman. Despite all the victories, I am still paid less than men who do the same job as me," she said.

In 2018, the average salary of female players in leagues around the world was revealed. At the time, female Bundesliga players in Germany were second behind the French league ($49,782) with an annual income of $43,730 (€37,250).

By comparison, players in the men's Bundesliga earned an average annual salary of €1.4 million.

If you ask Bundesliga clubs about this, you often don't get an answer straight away. Of course, club owners know that in European men's club football, you can earn enormous sums of money and spend it again. That is not the case with women's football.

But does it have to be this way?

Some clubs are more specific

The question that DW asked all Bundesliga clubs about the clear differences in income between the men's and women's professional teams was left unanswered by all - as far as the figures are concerned. But some clubs offered an insight.

"Equal pay for female and male footballers in their clubs is currently not feasible due to the hardly comparable income situation," explains Tim Schumacher, responsible for women's football at VfL Wolfsburg.

"The players are aware of these differences, which are particularly glaring when it comes to revenues from TV marketing," he adds. Equality, however, means more than just equal pay, something Schumacher says many female footballers also emphasize themselves time and again.

Not only at Wolfsburg, but also among the other clubs with professional first division teams - Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen, Freiburg, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hoffenheim and Werder Bremen - there is a unanimous effort to offer female professionals training and playing conditions that are in no way inferior to those of the men.

USA and Europe: worlds apart

"In principle, we subscribe to Rapinoe's demands for equal pay and equal conditions," says Michael Rudolph, Director of Communications at Werder Bremen. "We at Werder are committed to equal rights in football. This includes, for example, campaigning for more TV broadcasts of women's matches and making more offers to sponsors."

However, Rudolph adds that the context in European football is different from that in the USA, in terms of structures, budgets and marketing opportunities.

But could there be "equal pay" in football in the coming years? Rudolph has his doubts, but believes we are at least seeing changes in the language used by men around the women's game.

"When I hear commentators say 'That's what makes women's football fun,' that's a stupid sentence. When the athletes have produced a top-class performance, it has to be: 'That's what makes football fun."

As far as the wallet is concerned, appreciation doesn't cost much, in a positive or negative sense. But what else can be done?

Denni Strich, managing director of Hoffenheim, points to the youth structures which enjoy a very high status at the club. And irrespective of the different economic starting points, he says it is important to "weigh the perception and appreciation, also in the financial sense, for the achievements of the professional sportswomen according to their performance."

"To this end, we have already successfully expanded our commitment to marketing the women's teams in the past, which has also enabled us to raise the players' salaries," he added.

‘Be a Changemaker'

On a positive note, the direction of travel is forward. But where next? We can continue to dream of fair pay for women in the professional game.

This week, the European Club Association (ECA) published a strategy paper for women's football entitled "Be a Changemaker". The aim is to achieve sustainable growth, it says. "Full gender equality in football is an ambitious goal, but one we welcome," says ECA CEO Charlie Marshall.

That closing comment underlines the fact that despite the progress, it's still all too often men deciding on these issues in sport.