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 facing rising psychological stress. That is according to a new global survey of more than 800 footballers by the players’ union Fifpro.
The union said global revenue in the women’s game is expected to grow from about $581m (£439m) in 2024 to over $1bn (£756m) in 2027. Its findings suggest that salaries, visibility and investment have risen significantly since 2017, yet much of the professional game still operates in precarious conditions.
Rising stress and gaps in mental health support
Players were asked why they might leave football early. Fifpro said 59% cited financial reasons, while 46% identified psychological stress as a factor. Alex Culvin, the union’s head of women’s football, said there was no single explanation for the trend and pointed to growing public exposure, financial insecurity and inadequate support systems.
Culvin said players were now more visible than ever, and that the low income many receive meant they felt obliged to be visible to supplement their earnings. Awareness of mental health has improved, she said, but many players felt they were coping alone. “Players also reported, whilst having a higher psychological stress, that they didn’t have the support they needed in a mental health sense, either at the club or internationally,” she said.
In total, 57% of women who responded to the survey said they had struggled with their mental health, and half of them said their clubs had not provided support. The report also pointed to online harassment and abuse, which players can face because social media makes them more accessible to fans than ever.
Not every trend was negative. In 2017, nearly half of respondents considering leaving the game early said wanting a family could push them out. That figure has now fallen to 19%, which Fifpro attributes in part to maternity regulations introduced by Fifa in 2021 and updated two years ago. “What we’ve concluded, which I think is incredibly important, is that targeted regulatory intervention works – maternity regulations were introduced in 2021,” Culvin said.
Contracts, professional status and earnings gaps
One of the report’s most striking findings concerns how players see their own status. Under Fifa’s definition, a professional player has a written contract and is paid more than the expenses incurred while playing. In the survey, 62% of players described themselves as professional, 27% chose semi-professional and 12% chose amateur.
All respondents played for clubs in the top tier of their country, yet only 78% reported having a written contract, and 82% said they were paid by their club. Just 57% said that payment was enough to cover the costs of playing football. Culvin said: “Players who are professional but don’t see or feel themselves as professional are not receiving the full benefits of being an employee.”
The report shows that mean average monthly earnings have tripled since 2017 to $2,601 (£1,970). The median salary, however, is just $1,669 (£1,250), which Fifpro says highlights the limits of salary growth. Pay also varies considerably by region, with average monthly figures including:
- $6,450 (£4,886) in North America
- $3,982 (£3,016) in central and Western Europe
- $878 (£664) in Eastern Europe
- $480 (£363) in Africa
While salaries have risen sharply in leagues in the USA and Mexico, average pay in 10 Eastern European countries remains below the national minimum wage. Even in Western Europe and Asia/Oceania, which include some bigger football markets, average pay is not significantly higher than national minimum wage levels. Fifpro said it could not provide average salaries per league because the report focused on regions rather than individual countries.
Average contract lengths have increased from about one year in 2017 to 19 months, but many players still face periods without guaranteed income. Culvin said: “Only two-thirds of players are paid for the whole 12 months.” The report also found that 24% of players had experienced late payments over the past two seasons, while 42% had not been provided with a pension.
Commercial growth outpaces player safeguards
Culvin argued that the sport’s commercial growth is not yet being matched by protections for the players driving it. “The economic case for women’s football has been made,” she said. “I think the institutional regulatory and policy case needs to catch up quickly to protect and enhance our women’s players and enable them to perform maximally.”
Fifpro warned that the economic boom could “mask some of the realities that players face and actually endure on a day-to-day basis”, as conditions at the top of the game may hide the situation for many players elsewhere. Culvin said the sport was focused on a small group, describing it as “the top 5% of players”, while the remaining 95% were often unpaid on time, had short contracts and were left in vulnerable environments.
Culvin said there was a growing disconnect between expectations and reality, and called for a “wake-up call” for the wider ecosystem. Despite these concerns, Fifpro insisted the answer was not to slow growth but to ensure that commercial success and player welfare develop together. “There doesn’t need to be a choice for those between commercial growth and player protection,” Culvin said. “Those two things need to go hand in hand and work in tandem.”
