Average yearly salary in women’s football US$10,900, Fifa says, some players paid half that

The average annual salary for a female professional football player globally is $10,900, Fifa’s annual report on the women’s game has revealed, but that figure is skewed by a small number of top clubs.

Among the teams Fifa designated as Tier 1, which includes 41 clubs from 16 countries, the average salary was around US$24,030, although 16 of those top clubs paid an average gross salary of more than US$50,000, according to the “Setting the Pace, Fifa Benchmarking Report on Women’s Football” released on Monday.

The highest of those salaries was about US$120,000. The average gross salary, however, at Tier 2 and 3 clubs was US$4,361 and US$2,805, respectively.

“There is a need for players of a certain standard to earn a reliable and sufficient income solely from playing, reducing their dependence on secondary sources of income and allowing them to dedicate the time required to play at a higher level,” the report said.

Tier 1 clubs also featured the longest player contracts, most commonly between one and three years, with salaries highest for contracts of two to three years, while Tier 3 teams were the most likely of the tiers to offer contracts of less than three months.

“A longer contract enables players to commit to a club and a location, giving them more stability so they can focus on their footballing careers,” said the report.