Equal Pay in professional sports: millions for men, shower gel for women?

In the national team, Florian Wirtz does not increase a premium until DFB colleague Giulia Gwinn receives the same payment. What sounds like an illusory mind game in Germany is a reality in Denmark. The Scandinavian footballers successfully campaigned for financial equality and thus sent a sign against the gender -specific salary difference. “We are welcome to learn something from other nations, both in terms of football and at the Equal Pay,” said women’s national coach Christian Wück.

Nowhere is a multi -million dollar gap as in football. According to the DFB season report 2023/2024, the basic monthly salary of a Bundesliga player is around 4,000 euros. The top players at FC Bayern Munich or VfL Wolfsburg are estimated at no more than 300,000 euros per year, i.e. 25,000 euros per month. For comparison: Bayern professionals Harry Kane and Manuel Neuer should earn over 20 million euros annually.

Traditionally before the Equal Pay Day on March 7 and the World Women’s Day on March 8, the focus is more on the debate about equality. “We still have to find out that athletes from equivalent salaries and prize money are miles away,” said Karla Borger, President of Athletes Germany, the German Press Agency. Apart from their income, many women still fought prioritously to align their framework conditions. It is about training conditions, medical care or equipment.

Handball federation sets a small sign

But there are also positive examples. In biathlon, women and men get the same prize money. There are also hardly any financial differences in tobogganing, bob and large events in table tennis, triathlon or in athletics. In handball, men and women will receive the same daily allowance for their missions in the German national teams. “The symbolic power is much more important than the amount, because sport is valuable – regardless of whether women or men are active,” said national player Xenia Smits.

The debate about gender justice in German professional sports was recently cooked again as part of the four -hill tour. Ski jumper Selina Freitag described that she received shower cream, shampoo and four towels for her victory in the qualification in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. There were around 3,200 euros for the men.

The professional sport labor market has a special feature

An absolute adjustment in all sports are limited by the fact that the production and product markets are gender-separated. “In this gender separation, there is a central peculiarity of the professional sports job. We cannot suddenly integrate Giulia Gwinn from FC Bayern into the Munich men’s team, where it could participate in the greater market success of the men’s team,” said sports management expert Christoph Breuer. The idea of ​​the same payment in German football is “currently utopian”.

The market success is decisive for the distribution of salaries. It is about media revenues and highly endowed sponsorship contracts. “The fan is one of the main factors. If the fan is ready to pay just as much for a women’s football subscription at Sky as for a subscription to men’s football? I don’t think. And as long as this market success is different, the salaries also differ,” predicted Breuer.

EM bonus should increase for footballers

A first step would be to compensate for the premiums. “I do not want to anticipate the talks over 2025, but the amount will increase significantly again this year,” said DFB Managing Director Andreas Rettig, with a view to the women’s European Championship this summer. In 2017 there would have been 37,500 euros for winning the title per capita, in 2022 60,000 euros. For comparison: In the men’s latest European Championship, the DFB title bonus was 400,000 euros each.

You are much further in the USA. As early as 2022, the same payment of women and men in US football had been agreed. Three years earlier, when the women around Megan Rapinoe became world champions, the selection had submitted a class for discrimination against the association.

Germany is still far from this milestone. Eintracht Frankfurt’s national player Elisa Sense still recognizes a development. “A lot has happened in women’s football in recent years and as you can see, the clubs have become much more professional. I can’t say whether it will really be the same at some point,” said the 27-year-old.