I want to use this article to highlight some cold facts around what is a very controversial and highly debated subject – comparing women’s football to men’s football’
As I step into this minefield, I want to make two thing clear:
I am not giving opinions of my own, just facts
This article is about the financial side of the game, no other aspect
So for those of you with lives that are not entirely given over to football, the annual football financial report from Deloitte – aka the Football Money League – was released earlier this week and it made for interesting reading indeed. Firstly some good news for us, Arsenal Women were top the women’s rankings and the men’s team were 7th in the their League. The revenue for the women was up 43% and for the men by 15%. These are worldwide rankings so, so far so good.
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Now the eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I have omitted one key parameter here – the actual amounts involved. So let fill the gap:
Arsenal women’s revenue 2025 – £21.5 million
Arsenal men’s revenue 2025 – £690 million
That is 32 times higher!
As I say above Arsenal men were only seventh in the World behind perennial table toppers Real Madrid who generated a whopping £1.01 billion in revenue, 48 times more than our women’s team and for those that need reminding our girls won their Champions League while we all know how far the Real Madrid men’s team got in their equivalent. Finally, if you need this point emphasised even more, to the best of my knowledge, Deloitte’s rankings measure most if not all the clubs in the world, but the League is just the top 20 and in 20th place in the men’s League is West Ham United with £232 million – just under 11 times more than that generated by the Current Women’s European Champions.
I am not going to draw any conclusions from this nor put forward any opinions as to if this needs addressing or if indeed it does how it should be addressed, I am simply stating the facts as they are – today. The only thing I will say is that all those who do love to share their views from either side of the void need to look at these figures and digest them, because until you understand how huge the ‘Gap’ is you cannot even begin to formulate a position on it, let alone share the benefit of your wisdom with the rest of us.