Australian football fans were captivated over the last month as the Matildas made history in their 2015 Women’s World Cup campaign.
Agonisingly knocked-out in the quarter-finals by a late Japan goal on Sunday morning, their run in Canada included a 1-1 draw against the United States and a 1-0 victory over Brazil in the round of 16 that will forever go down in national sporting folklore.
However, despite recording Australia’s first ever knockout win at a senior World Cup and making huge leaps forward for the development of the women’s game, the monetary remuneration seems far from reflective of the support the public showed for the Matildas.
Talking with SEN Radio’s The Run Home program, Professional Footballers of Australia CEO Adam Vivian discussed just how bleak the wage situation is for female players.
“It’s a sad state of affairs on multiple fronts, when we talk about gender equity and the divide, I think it shows just how big the gap is.”
Though this is likely an understatement. For our Matildas players, full-time contracts from Football Federation Australia are worth a base rate of $21,000 a year, with an additional $500 earned for each international fixture (this went up to $600 after progression past the World Cup Group Stage). In contrast, a member of the 2014 Socceroos squad was being paid $6,500 per match.
“They basically undertake a full-time program for what is probably at best a part-time salary, ” said Mr Vivian.
“To add insult to injury, they are only six-month contracts, so it is only 10-and-a-half grand for a contracted period, which makes it even more difficult.”
The problem is seemingly endemic throughout the female side of the game, with the winner of the 2015 World Cup receiving $2 million in prize money, a pittance compared to the $35 million taken home by the German male team for their triumph in Brazil last year. The Matildas took home $400,000 for their quarter-final finish.
“We accept full responsibility in terms of working with the Matildas group and the Federation [FFA] to bridge that gap,” said Adam Vivian.
“I think ultimately the issue is – do the commercial revenues stack up?”
Judging by the countless hearts that were captured during the World Cup, the desire to support our female football stars is strong among the public. Rumors of a new television deal look set to save the W-League and with the proper nurturing, there is no reason to doubt that if the Matildas can continue their on-field achievements, the deserved commercial success will only follow.
“Big corporate companies want to be aligned to highly-successful, high performance teams and this team is phenomenal.”
“They have celebrated immense success over a long period of time, what we are looking at now is how do we capitalise on that success, how do we convert it into a really strong commercial model?”.
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