Women\'s Football — The Fight for Equal Pay

Women have been playing football for as long as men have. During the First World War, when millions of men were away fighting, women's football became hugely popular in England. Factory teams drew enormous crowds — a match on Boxing Day 1920 at Goodison Park in Liverpool attracted 53,000 spectators, with thousands more locked outside. Women's football was more popular at that time than much of the men's game.

Then, in 1921, the English Football Association did something extraordinary: it banned women from playing on any of its pitches. The reason given was that football was "quite unsuitable for females." This ban lasted for fifty years — it was not lifted until 1971. Similar bans existed in other countries. In Brazil, women were banned from playing football from 1941 to 1979. In Germany, the ban lasted until 1970.

Those fifty years of exclusion had enormous consequences. While men's football was growing into the world's most popular sport — building professional leagues, developing youth academies, and attracting billions of dollars in investment — women's football was pushed underground. Women who wanted to play had to organise their own games in parks and recreation grounds, with no funding, no coaching, and no media coverage. An entire generation of talented female footballers was lost.

When the ban was finally lifted, women's football had to start almost from scratch. The gap between the men's and women's game — in funding, facilities, pay, and public attention — was enormous. Closing that gap has been the central story of women's football for the past fifty years, and while extraordinary progress has been made, the fight is far from over.

The growth of women's football over the past decade has been one of the most remarkable stories in sport. Records have been broken again and again, and each time the new numbers have surprised even the most optimistic supporters.

The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France attracted more than one billion television viewers worldwide. The 2023 tournament in Australia and New Zealand broke that record again. The final of the 2022 Women's European Championship between England and Germany, held at Wembley Stadium in London, was watched by 87,192 people — a record for any European Championship final, men's or women's.

Club football has followed the same pattern. Barcelona's women's team regularly fills the Camp Nou — the largest football stadium in Europe — with more than 90,000 fans. In England, the Women's Super League has secured television deals worth millions of pounds, and attendances have increased by more than 200% in just a few years.

The quality of play has improved dramatically as well. As more money has been invested in coaching, facilities, and youth development, the technical standard of women's football has risen rapidly. Players like Spain's Aitana Bonmatí, England's Lauren James, and Colombia's Linda Caicedo have become global stars, recognised far beyond the world of football.

This growth has not happened by accident. It is the result of decades of campaigning by players, coaches, and supporters who refused to accept that women's football was a second-class sport. Every sold-out stadium and every new television deal is a victory that was fought for — not given.

Despite the enormous growth in popularity, female footballers are still paid dramatically less than their male counterparts. The pay gap in football is one of the largest in any profession, and it has become one of the most debated issues in sport.

The numbers are stark. In 2023, the highest-paid male footballer earned more than 100 million euros per year. The highest-paid female footballer earned less than one million euros. At international level, the total prize money for the 2023 Men's World Cup was 440 million US dollars. The total for the Women's World Cup was 110 million — a quarter of the men's amount. FIFA has promised to equalise prize money by 2027, but many people are sceptical about whether this will actually happen.

The argument most commonly used to justify the pay gap is revenue — men's football generates far more money through ticket sales, television deals, and sponsorship, and therefore the players should be paid more. This is true in simple economic terms. But critics point out that the reason men's football generates more revenue is that it has had decades of investment, promotion, and media coverage that women's football was deliberately denied.

The US Women's National Team — the most successful team in the history of women's football — fought a high-profile legal battle for equal pay with the US men's team. They argued that they had won more games, generated more revenue, and attracted more viewers than the men's team, yet were paid significantly less. In 2022, they reached a settlement with the US Soccer Federation that guaranteed equal pay for the men's and women's national teams — a landmark moment in the fight for equality in sport.

Women's football is at a turning point. The sport has never been more popular, more visible, or more professionally organised. But significant challenges remain, and the decisions made in the next few years will determine whether the current momentum continues or stalls.

The biggest challenge is investment. While the top leagues in England, Spain, and the United States are now fully professional, many women's leagues around the world still operate on tiny budgets. Players in some countries earn so little that they need second jobs to support themselves. Youth development programmes for girls are still far behind those for boys in most countries. Without sustained investment at every level, the growth of the women's game will be limited.

Media coverage is another key issue. While major tournaments now receive extensive television coverage, regular league matches often receive far less attention than men's games. Many fans say they would watch more women's football if it were easier to find on television. Broadcasters argue that they show what audiences want to watch. Both sides have a point, and breaking this cycle requires someone to take the first step.

Perhaps the most important change is cultural. In many parts of the world, girls are still discouraged from playing football — told it is not feminine, not appropriate, or simply not worth pursuing. Changing these attitudes requires visible role models, accessible facilities, and communities that celebrate girls who play sport with the same enthusiasm as boys.

The progress of the last decade has been extraordinary. What was once a banned, ignored, and underfunded sport is now filling the world's biggest stadiums and inspiring millions of young girls to pick up a ball. The question is no longer whether women's football belongs — it clearly does. The question is how quickly the rest of the world will catch up with what the players have already proved on the pitch.