MIND THE GAP!

Neymar’s salary is same as combined wages of all woman footballers in world’s top seven leagues

THE combined pay of seven top women’s football leagues adds up to the same figure that Paris Saint-Germain’s Neymar takes home in a season, the annual global sports salaries survey has found.

France, Germany, England, USA, Sweden, Australia and Mexico pay their 1,693 woman players £32.8m a year combined. That is almost identical to the €36.8m (£32.9m) that the Brazilian forward will earn at PSG, in 201718, for his playing contract alone.

The statistic, which emerges from the survey’s first examination of the gender pay gap, provides a graphic sense of the differentials in football. The sport’s best-paying women’s club, Lyon — for whom England star Lucy Bronze (right) plays — offers an average first team salary of £145,000. That is the kind of wage the top-paying men’s teams would offer in a week.

Norway has led the way on equal pay by announcing that it is to pay its men’s and women’s international teams equally. The men’s national team have decided to give away 550,000 Norwegian kroner (£50,700) received each year for commercial activities to the women, to help bring parity. The Norwegian FA is also almost doubling the remuneration pot for the women from 3.1 million Norwegian kroner (£296,000) to 6 million kroner (£574,000).

Norway captain and Chelsea midfielder Maren Mjelde said the move had ‘shown that it really is possible. [It helps us] to be able to compete against the top countries again [because the association] believe in us.’

Men’s national captain Stefan Johansen said: ‘I think it should be done this way. It could help them a lot. We want Norwegian football in future. The women’s team is just as important as us.’

A Norway FA spokesman said: ‘This is a recognition that women’s football in general, especially the women’s national team, have gained increased market value. And that the players of the women’s national team are increasingly used in commercial parts as well as communications.’

The survey reveals that for every professional female footballer in the world, there are 106 men making a full-time living from the game, at least. Not only that, but women who do make it can earn as little as one hundredth the sums of the male counterparts — even if they are among the elite.

That kind of abyss is seen even in nations where women’s football is relatively advanced — like England. Average first-team pay in the (men’s) Premier League has risen to £2.64m this season. In the equivalent women’s division, the FA Women’s Super League (FAWSL), it is £26,752 for this season, or about one per cent of the men’s money.