FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 Prize Pool Revealed amid Push for Equal Pay

FIFA announced Thursday that all players at the 2023 World Cup will receive at least $30,000, with those prizes escalating up to $270,000 for each player on the championship team.

Additionally, the financial allocation for the federations will go from $1.5 million for each participating country to $4.3 million for the championship country.

Here is the full list of allocations for the players, based on how far they advance:

• Group stage: $30,000
• Round of 16: $60,000
• Quarterfinal: $90,000
• Fourth place: $165,000
• Third place: $180,000
• Second place: $195,000
• Winners: $270,000

And here is the full list of prizes for the teams, to be used to “reinvest back into football” in an effort to “help to propel the women’s game even further,” per FIFA president Gianni Infantino:

• Group stage: $1,560,000
• Round of 16: $1,870,000
• Quarterfinal: $2,180,000
• Fourth place: $2,455,000
• Third place: $2,610,000
• Second place: $3,015,000
• Winners: $4,290,000

“The global salary of women’s professional footballers is approximately $14,000 annually so the amounts allocated under this unprecedented new distribution model will have a real and meaningful impact on the lives and careers of these players,” Infantino said in a statement.

Global union FIFPro released a statement of its own regarding the financial commitment from FIFA to the women’s game:

“The confirmation of equal conditions and guaranteed per-player performance compensation at next month’s World Cup represents not only the outcome of tremendous global collective action by over 150 national team players, under the umbrella of FIFPRO and its Member Unions; but a constructive negotiation with FIFA over the past months.

“They have listened to the voice of the players and we have taken steps towards greater gender equity in our game at its highest levels. The legacy of this action is by the players, for the players, of both today and tomorrow.”

Female players around the globe have been pushing for pay closer to what the men receive for international tournaments, and while some progress had been made in individual federations—the USWNT and USMNT are now paid equally after federal legislation was passed and signed into law in January—other countries lagged behind.

Namely, while some federations ensured that participating players were paid for appearing in international tournaments, others did not. Thursday’s news ensured that all players will take home some form of compensation.

It’s a positive step forward, given that the difference between what the men and women received at the international level was stark. At the 2022 men’s World Cup, $440 million was handed out in prize money, with champions Argentina alone receiving $42 million.

In contrast, just $30 million in total prize money was allocated to the 2019 women’s World Cup, with champions United States only receiving $4 million.

There remains, no doubt, a major gulf between the resources given to the men’s and women’s game. But Thursday’s news was another step toward diminishing just how vast that gulf is, especially for individual players who previously wouldn’t have received a check for their participation.