The debate about equal pay in women’s football is far from over. There is significantly more money at the World Cup than before, but no equal bonus payments within the DFB.
Even if Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally advocated equal bonus payments for national players: the German women footballers will again not come close to the sums recently awarded by the DFB for the men’s national team at this World Cup.
The German Football Association has declared the negotiations with the women’s team over because FIFA is paying the money directly to the players for the first time.
The selection of national coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg will not receive any prize money from the DFB beyond the premiums from the world association. This was confirmed by the Association of German Press Agency. Captain Alexandra Popp and Co. would each receive record prize money of around a quarter of a million euros for a World Cup triumph in Australia and New Zealand – but last year the DFB offered 400,000 euros for the German men for a triumph in Qatar .
Elsewhere “equal pay” already common
In the debate about equal pay (“Equal Pay”), Scholz tweeted during the EM 2022 in England with a clear request to the German association: “It’s 2022. Women and men should be paid equally.” The SPD politician also continued to campaign for this during a visit to the new DFB campus in Frankfurt/Main and at an international match.
However, Scholz does not want to get involved in the concrete design of the World Cup bonuses for the German soccer players, as government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit explained on Monday at the federal press conference in Berlin. However, Scholz continues to advocate for an equalization of funds for women and men and is still in talks with the DFB. Basically, it is good that there is now such a “great” bonus for women. In some other countries, “equal pay” has been common for some time – the US world champions even went to court for it.
FIFA recently announced that, for the first time, at least $30,000 (around €28,000) will be paid out to each player for women – almost directly to their accounts. The 23 world champions will each receive $270,000 (€252,000) at the end of the tournament, which runs from July 20th to August 20th, and thus more than $6.2 million (around €5.8 million) in total.
In the past, FIFA funds were distributed to the respective national associations, which in turn determined and paid out the prize money for the teams themselves. The associations receive additional payments after the World Cup tournament – the association of future world champions, for example, again over 4 million dollars (a good 3.7 million euros). The countries whose teams are eliminated after the preliminary round would only have 1.56 million US dollars (around 1.4 million euros) – which the DFB would probably not even cover the costs of the women’s World Cup.
Quantum leap for Popp & Co.
The action of FIFA saves the DFB further negotiations with the team council around Popp. For the players, the suspended amounts are a quantum leap – even if they don’t come close to those of the men: they each received 30,000 euros for reaching the EM final in 2022. There would have been 60,000 for the title.
Many national players had recently emphasized that the debate was primarily about reasonable salaries throughout the Bundesliga and about “equal play”, i.e. the same training conditions. According to its president Bernd Neuendorf, the latter are now “one to one” for men and women at the DFB. “Of course we’re very happy about that,” said national player Sara Däbritz about the record bonuses. “Nevertheless, the focus on football is our priority.”
At the World Cup, FIFA is distributing a total of 110 million US dollars (around 103 million euros) – and thus still significantly less than last time for the men in Qatar: last year there was a total of 440 million dollars (411 million euros). For the 2027 Women’s World Cup – for which the DFB is also applying together with Belgium and the Netherlands – FIFA President Gianni Infantino has set the goal of paying the same bonuses as for the 2026 men’s World Cup.