Womens football, Paygap, how is this legal and why is no one talking about it?

[Stupidbonfire]

Just as the title says really. I don’t understand how it’s legal to pay the women footballers so much less. The equality’s act 2010 seems to support equal pay for effort put in.

Am I being stupid? Could someone explain to me how the law is applied in this instance that it’s legal for such pay disparity and why the media seems silent on addressing it?

The women footballers have done our country proud and surely they deserve the same remuneration as the men would.

thank you so much.

@Thatswhyimacat

Also women weren’t banned from playing soccer - but from FA fields. But nowdays what is stopping women setting up their own leagues if they want to independent of men? The truth is nothing.

I find it kind of disturbing but telling that so much “equality” seems to be gotten by attaching to men somehow and being provided for by them. And this is really apparent with womens sports teams that are affiliated with mens.

Could it be that we’ve transferred the idea of men being providers for women at home to the wider world and in this case sports - and this is what many see equality as? Getting men to give them their half of what men have and make?
Its a very gendered old fashioned mindset but for a modern world. Weird.

No need to be rude @GirlInACountrySong . I’m not looking to create drama. I did do some research but into the equalities act, not so much football.
I’m generating a discussion on a discussion forum, which has been interesting and educational to me. And perhaps others. Especially the different view pints in terms of equalling things up.

when people post asking how to make formula up, no one Raines to tell them to ‘do their research’. We all try and help them understand.

thank you to those of you who know more than me, for highlighting some of the issues. I think we can all appreciate that a mens team out perform a womens team. Which is why they play separately. And why we have sport separated by sex (for now). I was just curious how the big clubs get away with paying women less. I didn’t realise that a defender in the womens league is a different job to the mens one. I’m fact I still don’t really understand, but acknowledge my football knowledge is limited.

Rushes!!! Not Raines 🤦🏼‍♀️

@DashboardConfessional that is helpful yes. Makes sense

I’m sorry but that’s absolutely ridiculous. Grass roots football is subsidised by pro football, it’s selfish self interest because it ensures a fan base and stream of talent to the pro clubs. In addition schools and local councils and parishes build pitches using public money because they have health and social benefits for young people. Not just men, whole communities. The idea that we have this enormous well funded infrastructure but we should exclude women and girls from it because it belongs to men is just daft.

@Runwalkskijump

I don’t doubt the womens game will grow but in truth it may never grow to the level of the mens. There’s no real reason to believe men and women will ever have the exact same interest in watching sport.

Thats fine but I don’t think some people can handle the idea of them never making as much money as the men.

You really don't get it. It's entertainment! The more people who watch a match (in person or on TV), the higher the revenue. Revenue is what pays wages. The job of the footballer is to entertain. Like all entertainers, what they earn is linked to their popularity!

A team with 50k attendance every match and tens of millions watching online will attract huge amounts of revenue, sponsorship, advertising, etc.

A team with 5k attendance every match will get a tiny amount of that income.

Why should the team with 50k attendance and high revenue subsidise another team that barely anyone watches?

It's nonsense to suggest equality. That is, UNTIL, the women's matches get the same level of support, in terms of attendances, viewing numbers, etc as the men's matches. If there isn't more equality at that stage, then there is a problem!

Could be wrong but when Notts County closed their professional women's team in 2017 the annual salaries and coaching costs were around £500,000 and the total revenues from TV/ticket sales/sponsorship was £28,000. The figures won't be correct but if we assume 20 home fixtures and a £5 ticket price, that would have an attendance of 280? The game has grown but I understand the financials recently are still subsidised. Arguably appropriate to grow a game but perhaps not a sound base for equal pay. Genuine equal pay would presumably shutter many teams now though perhaps not in the future??

@wonderstuff

Its funded by the pros now. But how did it start? It started with next to no funding by men just getting out and making it because it was a new thing they enjoyed. Why can’t women do the same? Why always have to lean on men and compare to them?

I do think the FA ban was wrong. But I don’t think women are just owed by the male clubs their own teams and money. I also don’t think leaning on men as providers in that way is a good look for so called progress for women.

@SammySammySammytheBetterfly it’s not so much that men should provide. I agree fully with your point. But there is still the issue that women have had disadvantages mainly caused by a historical patriarchal society and all the other things talked about on this forum constantly. So while I don’t think men should provide for women, there is a lot of catching up to do, that then men don’t need to do… I wonder if there was an even playing field in the beginning where we would be.
but I take your point and agree.

so, for example, take Liverpool fc. The womens first team do a different job than the mens first team? . In terms of effort put in and job description? I had no idea? I thought a goalie is a goalie. Obviously good ones and bad ones. But the jd and effort required at premier level the same?

But the point is, the two Premier levels will never be the same. You can be the best female goalie in the world, but that doesn’t mean you can play to the same standard as top male goalies. Why should someone get the same pay as someone else who, by definition, does a better job?

Think of jobs like plumbing or the building trade that, even now, are still primarily associated with men. There’s no reason why a female plumber can’t be as good as a male plumber - and unless the job is fixing a men’s locker room whilst it’s in use, there’s no plumbing job she can’t do either. But a woman can’t play for a man’s team, or vice versa. It’s not possible for both genders to do the same job in this sense, as the roles are by definition only open to one gender.

So surely the clubs should divide the wages equally between the men and women and pay the men less if they can’t afford to pay women equally?

Would you work for less money than you were worth so that someone who can’t possibly be as good at the job as you are can earn the same as you?

@Kazzyhoward actually I do get it now. I hadn’t really thought about it as entertainment…. Just sport, so the point you make resonates with me.

it’s just that the reasons for the mens sport having more viewing figures could be partly / mostly attributed due to my reasons above. So again some unfair advantage there

National team players should be (and are) paid the same by the FA. But you can't apply "equal work, equal pay" for club teams. It's not just Liverpool and they split profits. It's two different leagues and 2 different clubs. The other produces more profit and therefore employees make more. CEO of Amazon gets paid more than then CEO of Milton's bakery. Both are CEO and does similar work but they can't be paid the same.

I play football and regularly attend women's games. We need to support by going to games. We need to buy products with Leah Williamsons face on it so they'll get sponsorship. We need to watch games to get TV deals. I'd love to have all the national leagues for women to be professional but it can't be same pay at a club level. That's just not how it works. Maybe some point.

A better analogy is that Corrie actors get paid more than Hollyoaks actors. They are all doing the "same" job but more viewers. The issue with football is the women can't get "cast" in men's footie and women tennis players can't choose to play a 5 set final.

As she said it is growing and it will change but it isn't going to happen overnight.

Nope, and the only way it is going to change more quickly is if lots of the people on here start paying at the gate to watch their local women's team, buying merchandise, subscribing to whatever broadcaster is showing the games as well supporting the grass roots aspect of the sport by signing your daughters up to the local side and volunteering to help.

I have to confess when it comes to the expansion and developing the mainstream appeal of women's professional sports there is a whiff of it's someone else's job to do the actual leg work of physically going to watch your local side.

I know this is an irrelevant point. But Liverpool women's team played last season in Champioonship and got promoted to super league (so essentially the women's premiere league) so they didn't play top level

Season tickets, general ticket sales, kit sales & merchandise & Sky/BT coverage deals bring in HUGE sums of money to Premier League clubs annually BUT that's all via the men's first teams, not the women's. I for one would rather the players get a fat chunk of this than owners and share holders creaming it all off so I'm fine with massive player wages (so long as the club can afford it and isn't being mismanaged).

Whether we like it or not, currently women's teams do not bring in the revenue to warrant equal pay.

If & when women's games start to draw equal sized crowds and are routinely televised then their pay would need to increase. I'd like to see that happen & I do hope clubs start selling more tickets to women's games on the back of the Euros
but it would take both time and a massive shift in viewer thinking.

The other difference is in the number of games played per season. Men's teams play a lot more games due to tournaments etc, plus their leagues are larger (so more teams to play home & away p/season).

I've really enjoyed the women's Euro's but honestly I'm 100 times more excited for the Prem to get going at the end of the week and I'm sure most football fans feel the same.

Do different boxing or mma fights get paid differently (even within weight and sex categories)? Some people just want to see some events more than others - so revenue generated is higher. It’s supply and demand and isn’t really a surprise.

but Since I was little I’m glad that women’s sport (and now also para sport - in the commonwealth games) is getting more attention. I hope it will grow in popularity and help people want to see the games as entertaining and motivating in their own right (rather than a second best to the standard men’s games).

So women and girls should build new pitches, raise millions of pounds, to play football because leaning on men isn’t a good look? Should I get a reduction on my local taxes because sports infrastructure is mostly used by men and boys? How ridiculous. Men have and have always disproportionately owned assets and means of production. Women disproportionately take on unpaid domestic labour. The world isn’t fair but women certainly aren’t taking more than their fair share from men!

In 1921 when the FA banned women from their pitches womens football was attracting huge crowds, more than the mens game. Women had taken up the role of playing football during WW1 and it was incredibly popular. Killing the woman’s game for 50 years was absolutely a bad look, supporting it to become re-established seems only fair. It’s a multi billion pound industry.

There may be significant historical discrimination that has affected the commercial development of the women's game, perhaps the reverse but in a similar way to supply and demand affecting rates of pay for fashion models. Could be wrong but I understand the rates of pay for equivalent levels involves men being paid around a quarter of what women get paid.

The men's game doesn't have a set wage - it not like every player earns x amount, not every player in every team earns the same amount, not every player in the same position earns the same amount. The system doesn't work that way. It's not all premier League players earn X or all Manchester United players earn Y or all goal keepers earn Z, each player has a unique contract that will give them a different salary, performance payments and bonuses to to everyone else. There are all sorts of factors at play - how much they were earning at their previous club, how marketable they are, which position they play in (broadly speaking goal scorers are the best paid), how much the transfer fee was for that player, how rich the club area, how much they want to retain the player. This is why (like actors) footballers have agents. The professional women are now earning broadly comparable amounts to professional men in the lower leagues. And the level of revenue generated are probably below that of a lower league male team.

The situation in the tiny subset of films, 'Hollywood' stars
is interesting. Generally male stars get paid more than women though the argument has always been that some male stars can tentpole a movie and secure a larger audience and relatively few if any female stars can reliably deliver an audience. Could be wrong but the last research I saw showed no female star was a 'I'll go and see that film because X is starring' in the way Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and others were found/thought to be able to. An essentially contested area and cause and effect will be difficult to disentangle.

I was actually going to mention that Ronda Rousey was the highest paid figher in MMA for a while - just to back up what other have said about the pay being l inked to the revenue they bring into the sport

Going back to football, from a strickly legal standpoint, I'm not sure but I'm assuming all the players are technically self employeed and contracted to clubs rather than directly employed by them

It always makes me laugh when something like this happens & suddenly people who have no shown any interest in a subject previously, are experts.

The striker for Luton Town doesn't get paid the same as Christiano Ronaldo.