Women’s football is one of the world’s fastest growing sports, but a new FIFA report shows that salaries for its professional players are not increasing at the same rate.
Highlighting an increasing gap in salaries, contract lengths, and even coaching opportunities, the report shows a picture of a sport still grappling with its professionalization.
Here’s a closer look at what female footballers can expect to earn in 2025, and how the gap between them and their male counterparts continues to increase.
The average female soccer salary
The latest FIFA annual report on salaries within the women’s game makes for stark reading. The average annual salary for a female professional football player globally is $10,900 (£8,400) but this figure is skewed by a small number of top clubs.
Among the teams FIFA designated as Tier 1, including 41 clubs from 16 countries, the average salary was around $24,030 (£18,500), although 16 of those top clubs paid over $50,000 (£38,500) as an average gross salary.
The highest of those salaries was approximately $120,000 (£92,500). However, the average gross salary at Tier 2 and 3 clubs was just $4,361(£3362) and $2,805 (£2162), respectively.
Tier 1 clubs also featured the longest player contracts – most commonly between one and three years, with the highest salaries for two to three years contracts. Tier 3 teams were most likely the ones, which offered contracts shorter than three months.
“A longer contract enables players to commit to a club and a location, giving them more stability, so they can focus on their footballing careers,” said the report.
The findings make it difficult to see how many Tier 2 or 3 stars can afford to support themselves without taking on another full-time role elsewhere, which the report acknowledged. “There is a need for players of a certain standard to earn a reliable and sufficient income solely from playing, reducing their dependence on secondary sources of income and allowing them to dedicate the time required to play at a higher level,” it said.
This is in stark contrast to their male counterparts. While the men’s game generates much more income than the women’s, the ratio of earnings to revenue is also much higher.
What male soccer stars earn
The astronomical wages of the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappe are common sights of sporting headlines.
Let´s look at the base income for Ronaldo, for example. He is reported to be earning a base salary of $219 million in 2025, and that’s before talking bonuses. Now, these aren’t the kind of extras you might see in sports betting or the world of online casino bonuses, where the probability of winning money depends on pure luck. Ronaldo’s bonuses are pure cash which he gets for skill-based achievements like goals scored or assists made – they’re also much higher than the average gambler can even dream of winning.
But it’s not just the top stars raking in the big bucks. A recent report found that the average English Premier League star can expect to make on average $8.27 million (£6.38 million) a year, with weekly earnings several times more than your average female player makes in a year.
Sky-high wages like this have long been a source of controversy within the sport, with many fans saying that it puts players out of touch with the normal people who pay their wages.
Yet, the counterargument goes that if these stars create the entertainment that earns clubs billions of dollars a year, then they should be suitably rewarded for it.
However, this argument doesn’t seem to apply to the women’s game where the increase in revenue hasn’t translated to higher salaries for its athletes across the board.
Can it change for female players?
Change is coming a little too slowly for women footballers but there are signs that the tide is shifting. Increased visibility and greater media coverage are driving positive change within the sport and there are more calls for higher salaries than ever.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the report helps clubs, leagues and stakeholders to gain a better understanding of the factors that drive success. “The strides made in recent years have been remarkable, but there is still more work to be done to unlock its full potential,” Infantino said. However, it’s unclear if women’s salaries are part of this planned progress.
The FIFA report also highlighted attendances as an area of concern when it comes to salaries. While Arsenal hosted Manchester United in front of a Women’s Super League record 60,160 fans at Emirates Stadium last year, Tier 1 teams averaged just 1,713 fans, while Tiers 2 and 3 were 480 and 380, respectively.
If interest doesn’t pick up over the next year, then it may be hard for clubs to justify a salary hike for its stars, even if they are contributing to the sport’s overall progress.
Still, the latest report makes for tough reading for the women’s soccer’s top players and illustrates just how much work the game needs to do to earn full professional status for some of its premier players.
