On the last day of July, the most beautiful football tournament of the year, the European Women’s Championship, ended. In the final, girls from England and Germany clashed. In regular time, the players did not reveal the strongest, the point was set in the 110th minute – Manchester City striker Chloe Kelly made the score 2:1 and secured the victory for England in Euro 2022.

“Football is coming home” the girls sang, their joy knew no bounds.

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They did what their colleagues from the men’s team could not, because Harry Kane and company lost a year ago in a similar final to the Italians. True, the size of the prize money for the girls was shocking. Artem Dzyuba received even more money for a week at Zenit, and in comparison with Cristiano Ronaldo’s salary, this generally looks like a mockery.

Is this a worthy reward for winning a prestigious tournament?

Photo: © Shaun Botterill / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

English football players will receive 65.7 thousand euros

At first glance, the amount looks impressive. We turn on the calculator and start comparing whether this is so. 65.7 thousand euros is about 4.2 million rubles. With this money you can buy a new Korean compact crossover. I think that in the minds of Russian fans this amount will not raise questions – a good pay for playing football. Especially for the tournament, where the winner played only six matches.

But if we compare the prize girls with salaries or awards for male football players, then such amounts look ridiculous. Artem Dziuba received about 77 thousand euros for a week at Zenit, and world football star Cristiano Ronaldo receives about 65.4 thousand euros a day at Manchester United!

For the victory at Euro 2020, each player of the Italian national team received 250 thousand euros. This is almost four times more than English women. Harry Kane and company for second place in the European Championship earned a total of 11 million euros, although they sent all the winnings to charity (for which they deserve special respect). As we can see, the prize money for the women’s tournament is not close to the amounts that appear in the men’s half of this sport.

Photo: © Francois Nel / Staff / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

In the US, soccer players get paid the same as men.

News from the States about the infringement of various rights of certain categories of people has already ceased to make noise. But we will remember one case. Earlier this year, the U.S. women’s soccer team secured their salaries on par with the men’s team. The girls fought for it for six years. One of the leaders of this initiative was the popular American football player Megan Rapino, who won the Ballon d’Or in 2019. According to media estimates, at that time she earned about 160 thousand euros a year. Also bad.

It all started in March 2016. Five star internationals – Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Carly Lloyd, Becky Sauerbrand and Hope Solo – have filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The players complained not only about different financial conditions, but also about life: there was not enough money for food in the training camps. Their perseverance has taken its toll, given that women’s soccer is in high demand in the US right now.

By the way, in 2020 the Football Association of England promised to pay girls a man’s salary. The payouts seem to be the same, but the prize money from the Euro is not greatly affected, because this is the responsibility of UEFA.