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Women's Football - Wage Disparity Debate

fortworthspur

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2007
11,244
17,536
anyway, the solution is simple. Women could form their own governing body and negotiate their own contracts and be free of FIFA altogether.
 

Atomic Blonde

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2017
98
487
forget sponsorship, its the TV contracts that matter. Merging the sponsorship deals is actually a concession to the women. Do you honestly believe FIFA is giving women a smaller cut of their revenue than the men? I dont understand your argument.
To be honest I'm not sure if you are just trolling now or are just being ignorant. Either way, you are clearly ignoring valid arguments/facts that contradict your argument as well as completely missing the point regarding FiFA's mission and purpose. If you can't be bothered to read my (or others) posts properly then I'm not going to waste anymore time explaining something you obviously don't want to hear.
 

MichaelPawson

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2013
834
2,149
if there's money to be made they'd be all over it. if something sells people will sell it whatever it is.

Why do people assume that the market is this omnipotent force made up of higher-ups who know exactly when something has public interest and to what degree? The demographics of people who run sports media (and media as a whole) aren't reflective of society as a whole, so of course there's going to be coverage deficits that result from this basic fact. This is especially true when it comes to women's sports (due to the gender imbalances in the aforementioned two industries), but you even see it in men's sports. Just as one example, are all the fawning Liverpool articles we saw in the run-up to the final reflective of a market where everyone's obsessed with and adores Liverpool, or is it just a product of the particular peculiarities of English football media?
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
30,536
46,628
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/48581038

England's win over Scotland in the Women's World Cup on Sunday was the UK's most watched women's football match of all time, drawing a peak of 6.1 million viewers on BBC television.

The figure - 37.8% of the available audience - breaks the previous record of four million viewers for England's Euro 2017 semi-final against the Netherlands.

Ellen White and Nikita Parris scored as England claimed a 2-1 victory in Nice, with Claire Emslie replying for Scotland.

Just before the women kicked off in Nice, England men were playing Switzerland in the Nations League third place play-off. That was shown on Sky Sports and had a peak audience of 1.236 million (15% share) as England won on penalties.

World Cup coverage on the BBC continues across TV, radio and online.

The Scots next play against Japan on Friday 14 June at 14:00 BST, while England face Argentina in their second group game later the same day, at 20:00.

Scotland are playing in their first World Cup while England reached the semi-finals at the 2015 tournament in Canada.

England v Scotland, which kicked off at 17:00 BST on Sunday, was broadcast on BBC One and BBC One Scotland, which had a 46% share of the available audience north of the border.

The average audience for the match itself was 4.6 million, and four million for the programme overall.

The previous highest UK peak was at 21:00 on a Thursday evening for the Euro 2017 match shown on Channel Four.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

So 6.1M is an impressive audience even if they are well below the numbers for the mens world cup ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2018/world-cup-group )

Depending on where you look the average Premier League game gets an audience of less than 1M (somewhere between 800,00 and 1.5M) viewers in the UK or 12M globally.
 

Trotter

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2009
2,169
3,312
Nailsy, that is commendable.

How does that compute to the games being played out in quarter full stadiums though, which is devaluing the product. and would back FIFA's position that it isn't marketable yet, despite decent TV audiences for a few countries.
 

Trotter

Well-Known Member
Jan 30, 2009
2,169
3,312
I am of the view that women in sports should get similar or even equal pay to men when the product is of a reasonably similar standard. Just like in business women should paid same in business as men for delivering same job.

In sport Tennis, Athletics, Swimming and even golf (on shorter courses), Women should be able to earn close to what men are able to earn (Golf has same issue though, it is just not marketable enough and they earn a fraction of the prize money).

However sports such as Cricket, Rugby, Football the standard between mens and womens football is nowhere comparable.

Just take a few recentish results to show the disparity.

Germany Womens Team 0 - 8 Village mens team from Germany
Sweden Women 0 - 3 AIK U17 (despite AIK being asked to take off a player after 2 minutes to even things up a bit)
USA Womens 2 - 8 USA U17
Canadian Womens team played in a Toronto based midget league (15 to 17 year olds). They finished bottom without a point.

Based on this the ladies football is at roughy an Under 14 mens standard, which is nowhere near good enough to consider equal prize money to a mens game.

What FIFA and the national associations need to be doing is ploughing money into the development of the game to improve it, not reward a sub-standard currently unmarketable product.

The US Womens team is an outlier in the audience figures it gets, but then the US does like a winner.
 

MichaelPawson

Well-Known Member
Aug 22, 2013
834
2,149
I am of the view that women in sports should get similar or even equal pay to men when the product is of a reasonably similar standard. Just like in business women should paid same in business as men for delivering same job.

In sport Tennis, Athletics, Swimming and even golf (on shorter courses), Women should be able to earn close to what men are able to earn (Golf has same issue though, it is just not marketable enough and they earn a fraction of the prize money).

However sports such as Cricket, Rugby, Football the standard between mens and womens football is nowhere comparable.

Just take a few recentish results to show the disparity.

Germany Womens Team 0 - 8 Village mens team from Germany
Sweden Women 0 - 3 AIK U17 (despite AIK being asked to take off a player after 2 minutes to even things up a bit)
USA Womens 2 - 8 USA U17
Canadian Womens team played in a Toronto based midget league (15 to 17 year olds). They finished bottom without a point.

Based on this the ladies football is at roughy an Under 14 mens standard, which is nowhere near good enough to consider equal prize money to a mens game.

What FIFA and the national associations need to be doing is ploughing money into the development of the game to improve it, not reward a sub-standard currently unmarketable product.

The US Womens team is an outlier in the audience figures it gets, but then the US does like a winner.

Sorry, but I don't agree with this. Prize money should be determined as a percentage of total revenue generated by the tournament itself. At the end of the day, footballers (both men and women) are workers, and are entitled to a percentage (a higher one than they're getting now) of the profits they generate. Skill level shouldn't matter if it makes money, and skill as a concept is kind of subjective anyway; are the women's teams losing those games because they're markedly less skillful or produce a less aesthetically pleasing style of soccer, or are they just getting physically bulled off the pitch in the games you've cited? It's tough to answer without getting overly philosophical I'd say.

That being said, with proper institutional support of the women's game, it would be interesting to see just how big or small the gap would be between the men's and women's games. I hope some of the "smaller" nations that are doing well in the current World Cup pour more resources into their grassroots programs, which I think would be more worthwhile than just hyperinflating individual prize offerings.
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
30,536
46,628
Nailsy, that is commendable.

How does that compute to the games being played out in quarter full stadiums though, which is devaluing the product. and would back FIFA's position that it isn't marketable yet, despite decent TV audiences for a few countries.

The stadiums aren't selling out and I imagine the tickets are much cheaper than the group stages of the men's game as well, so it's definitely still way behind the men's game in that respect. I mentioned somewhere that apparently there's very little advertising in the host cities to even let people know that this world cup is on. Maybe if they'd put up a few posters and run a few adverts the stadiums might be half full now.

I am of the view that women in sports should get similar or even equal pay to men when the product is of a reasonably similar standard. Just like in business women should paid same in business as men for delivering same job.

In sport Tennis, Athletics, Swimming and even golf (on shorter courses), Women should be able to earn close to what men are able to earn (Golf has same issue though, it is just not marketable enough and they earn a fraction of the prize money).

However sports such as Cricket, Rugby, Football the standard between mens and womens football is nowhere comparable.

Just take a few recentish results to show the disparity.

Germany Womens Team 0 - 8 Village mens team from Germany
Sweden Women 0 - 3 AIK U17 (despite AIK being asked to take off a player after 2 minutes to even things up a bit)
USA Womens 2 - 8 USA U17
Canadian Womens team played in a Toronto based midget league (15 to 17 year olds). They finished bottom without a point.

Based on this the ladies football is at roughy an Under 14 mens standard, which is nowhere near good enough to consider equal prize money to a mens game.

What FIFA and the national associations need to be doing is ploughing money into the development of the game to improve it, not reward a sub-standard currently unmarketable product.

The US Womens team is an outlier in the audience figures it gets, but then the US does like a winner.

Does it matter that the men's teams are better than the women's teams? The men are faster and stronger and can hit the ball harder so they're going to win. They aren't playing each other so I don't see why this matters? I've only watched a few games, but the quality is good and the games are competitive.

Its been mentioned before that this isn't about equal prize money, just more prize money than they currently get. The winning team in the men's world cup gets more than the entire prize fund for the women's tournament. You mention ploughing money into developing the game and that's what the prize money is used for. The money goes to the football federations who will pay their players from it and then invest the rest into improving the infrastructure of the game in their country.
 

fortworthspur

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2007
11,244
17,536
To be honest I'm not sure if you are just trolling now or are just being ignorant. Either way, you are clearly ignoring valid arguments/facts that contradict your argument as well as completely missing the point regarding FiFA's mission and purpose. If you can't be bothered to read my (or others) posts properly then I'm not going to waste anymore time explaining something you obviously don't want to hear.
im not trolling. let me just ask where do you expect the extra money to come from?
 

fortworthspur

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2007
11,244
17,536
How about FIFA's 2.7B cash reserves?

Remember FIFA is a not for profit organisation that is dedicated to promoting and growing the sport for all.

not for profit isnt the same as non-profit. look, if someone thinks the men should subsidize the women just say so. or do people really believe FIFA is syphoning off women's revenue for other purposes?
 

absolute bobbins

Am Yisrael Chai
Feb 12, 2013
11,649
25,962
I meant quit the organisation. Do you honestly believe everytime people are not happy with something they should just quit?
In this instance, yes. I like this tough it out attitude but it's a free market and if FIFA members think they can get a better deal for their female sections outside of FiFA then taking the womans game out of FiFA must be on the table.
 

nailsy

SC Supporter
Jul 24, 2005
30,536
46,628
not for profit isnt the same as non-profit. look, if someone thinks the men should subsidize the women just say so. or do people really believe FIFA is syphoning off women's revenue for other purposes?

Who said anything about non-profit? FIFA could treble the prize money in the womens game and still make a profit. Using some money from the cash reserves would have a marginal effect on annual profits anyway.

And Yes, the mens game should subsidize the womens game. It's still football. It's an investment for FIFA. They invest, the players improve, more people are interested in the game, they have a more desirable product and they end up with a tournament being watched by more people, bringing in a lot more revenue.
 
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