Why are women's football players still paid so little as the game grows?

Numbers match the citations in the article. A working link isn't proof that a page supports a claim; check the quoted passage and date.

1. 1

   Women's billion-dollar boom leaves players behind, says Fifpro

   BBC NewsPublished Oct 12, 2026Checked Oct 12, 2026

   “Women's football is on course to become a billion-dollar industry, but many professional players are still earning low wages, working on insecure contracts and experiencing rising psychological stress, a Fifpro survey indicates.”

2. 2

   Exploring the determinants of salary valuations in women's professional soccer.

   Frontiers in sports and active living (Gasparetto)Published Mar 20, 2026Checked Oct 12, 2026

   “This paper examines the determinants of salary valuations in women's professional soccer, a topic that has been largely overlooked in academic research. Using a unique dataset derived from the FIFA video game series, the study analyzes how player quality, age, skills, and international reputation are associated with salary valuations using Ordinary Least Squares regression. The findings indicate that observable measures of talent, age, technical skills, and reputation are systematically related to salary valuations, broadly aligning with patterns documented in men's professional soccer. This similarity suggests increasing convergence in how player attributes are valued across genders as women's soccer continues to professionalize. The study contributes novel evidence on salary-setting patterns in women's soccer and offers insights relevant to the sport's ongoing development, particularly with respect to visibility, commercialization, and efforts to reduce the gender pay gap.”

3. 3

   Women's association football (Wikipedia)

   WikipediaPublished Oct 10, 2026Checked Oct 12, 2026

   “Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams participate internationally. The same rules, known as the Laws of the Game, are used for both women's and men's football. The United States is the most successful nation in women's football, having won 4 Women's World Cups and 5 Olympic gold medals. The second most successful nation in women's football is Germany, with 2 Women's World Cups and 1 Olympic gold medal. After the "first golden age" of women's football occurred in the United Kingdom in the 1920s, with one match attracting over 50,000 spectators, the Football Association instituted a ban from 1921 to 1970 in England that disallowed women's football on the grounds used by its member clubs. In many other nations, female footballers faced similarly hostile treatment and bans by male-dominated organisations. In the 1970s, international women's football tournaments were extremely popular, and the oldest surviving continental championship was founded, the AFC Women's Asian Cup.”

4. 4

   Pride or backlash? Public attitudes towards the Spanish women's national football team.

   Frontiers in sports and active living (Moscoso-Sánchez et al.)Published Dec 2, 2025Checked Oct 12, 2026

   “While these events deepened discussions about sexism in sport, they also revealed strong ideological divisions in Spanish society. This article examines how Spaniards perceived these events and the players' labour activism.MethodsDrawing on nationally representative data from the October 2023 Barometer of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), we analyse support for the players' demands and satisfaction with the team's victory. Using binary logistic regression models, we assess how sociodemographic and political factors shape these attitudes.ResultsResults show broad public support for footballers' demands but with marked ideological and gender divides. Women and left-wing citizens express stronger solidarity with the players, while right-wing and VOX voters are less supportive and less satisfied with the team's success.DiscussionThese findings highlight how sport, gender, and politics intersect in Spain's contemporary public sphere and demonstrate that women's sport can serve both as a site of empowerment and a field of cultural and political contestation.”

5. 5

   AFLW and the gender gap: an analysis of public attitudes towards the Women's Australian Football League.

   Australian journal of psychology (Glazbrook & Webb)Published Feb 12, 2024Checked Oct 12, 2026

   “The paucity of research into the AFLW and attitudes towards women's sport, limits our understanding of the predictors of these attitudes. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to investigate the factors that may influence the development of attitudes towards the AFLW.MethodData were collected from a community sample (N = 171), to evaluate attitudes towards both AFLW consumerism, and the endorsement of gender equality within the AFL.ResultsResults revealed that basic demographic factors were influential in attitude development (i.e., age, gender), however the most prominent predictor of attitudes towards the AFLW was gender role ideology, suggesting that beliefs about gender roles may influence anti-AFLW attitudes.ConclusionsThe findings reflect an ongoing perception of sport as a masculine space, and as such, a need to adjust marketing approaches to frame the AFLW in a manner that encourages consumer behaviour. Future research directions are discussed.”