Football in its entirety is a sport that captivates audiences all across the planet. The sheer spectacle of pride, expectation, thrill, nostalgia, and the euphoria that is present in this sport makes people go through all sorts of emotions throughout the 90 (or) 120 minutes.
There is no specification for football to gauge someone or ascertain parameters for contrast and comparison. Young and old, rich and poor, city or village, the passion and craze take centre-stage when people get a ball at their feet.
But one very important parameter misses out in this regard which is the case of male and female and there seems to be somewhat an almost unbridgeable gap in the way the game is perceived and played among the two orientations.
The status quo
The disparity in compensation meted out to female professionals and the respective male professionals plying their trade across the various leagues has led to widespread concerns regarding the lack of importance accorded to the feminine equivalent of football.
Lack of action on part of football associations to accord higher status to women footballers both individually and collectively has led to players and groups taking up arms against such neglect and demand their right to be seen upon the same light as the men do.
The numbers
To put things into perspective we look at some statistics and numbers of the female game which resembles a pale shadow of that of the men's game.
We start with Neymar Jr. who plays for French club Paris St.Germain. Neymar earns close to £33mn a year for his on-field performances. His salary is the sum of close to 1,700 women footballers who are plying their trade around the European footballing landmass.
The Women's World Cup that ended recently saw the all-conquering USWNT team win their fourth ever World Cup and their second in a row. But the overall prize money offered to the women's teams from FIFA was a measly $30mn compared to the $400mn prize money allotted to the participants of the men's edition just a year ago.
Yes, the total prize money pool allotted for teams competing in the Women's edition totalled only $30mn which was lesser than what France took home as winners of the men's edition awarded $38mn in prize money. (Statista)
The issue of representation stems from the fact that there are currently 137,021 male footballers across professional leagues in the world whereas there are only 1,287 female professionals; merely 1% of the total male population.
In England, the league structure in place was introduced as recently as 2010 after many calls for re-introducing the league for women after the FA had banned it in the early 1920s stating the fact that the "aggressive nature of the sport was a rebuttal to the gentle nature and mannerisms of women".
The prize money awarded to the champions (Arsenal) in the women's circuit was £500,000, a tame return in contrast to the victorious Manchester City men's team's winning pot of £38.4mn.
Finally, Lionel Messi currently the world's best-paid footballer earns a total of $127mn annually from his on-field wages ($92mn) and his massive endorsement deals ($35mn) which is close to a whopping 325 times the earnings of the best-paid women's footballer Ada Hegerberg's income of $400,000.
The good, bad, and the future
In the massive business proposition that football has become the numbers behind the game in terms of remuneration has been the cause of raging debates, and movements against football associations.
Although FIFA claims that it has addressed the issue of compensation gap it remains that the problem remains that the pay for women is not commensurate with that of the pay offered to men.
Current women's Ballon D'Or holder Ada Hegerberg's refusal to play the world cup citing pay and management issues led to the Norwegian Football Association becoming the first association in the world to offer agreements stating equal pay for both men and women footballers.
The USWNT team filed a lawsuit against U.S Soccer (the national association) on the grounds of equal compensation and provision of identity to women's football in the US. (Guardian)
These are a but a few of many cases which have empowered women's football teams and players to take up arms against footballing institutions nationally and internationally. Cases of economic misogyny and lack of promotion of the women's game has been among the epicentre of debates.
For good viewing, attendances in women's football have been on the rise in countries like Spain and Germany especially in the former where a league game between eventual champions Atletico Madrid and runners-up FC Barcelona set the world record for attendance in a women's football match with 60,739 people in attendance.
Although initial measures have been put into place, it is still a long road ahead for the women's game to gain ascendancy in popularity identical to the men's game. The road ahead concerns everything to be in a positive light in pay, marketing, popularity quotient and the facilities provided to the women's game and the support that women's football craves for and richly deserves.
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