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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 experiencing rising psychological stress, according to a new global survey of more than 800 footballers by the players’ union Fifpro. The report found that 59 percent of respondents cited financial reasons as a factor in considering leaving the game early while 46 percent pointed to psychological stress, a sharp increase from 13 percent in Fifpro’s previous survey conducted in 2017. Fifpro director of women’s football Alex Culvin said the findings pointed to structural problems that could undermine the sport’s long-term growth if left unaddressed.
The Fifpro assessment reported that mean average monthly earnings have tripled since 2017 to $2,601 but the median salary stands at just $1,669, indicating wide disparities even among professionals. Average monthly pay varies considerably by region, from $6,450 in North America and $3,982 in central and Western Europe to $878 in Eastern Europe and $480 in Africa, the survey showed. Culvin noted that in some regions average pay remains below national minimum wage levels, adding that players who are professional but do not see or feel themselves as professional are not receiving the full benefits of being an employee.
A Fifa benchmarking report released in March 2025 placed the average annual gross salary for a female professional footballer globally at $10,900, though that figure is skewed by a small number of top clubs. The Fifa study, which examined 86 leagues and 669 clubs, found that Tier 1 clubs averaged around $24,030 in player salaries while Tier 2 and Tier 3 clubs paid $4,361 and $2,805 respectively. According to the same Fifa assessment, only 16 of the top-tier clubs paid average gross salaries above $50,000, with the highest reaching approximately $120,000.
Fifa figures show that Tier 1 leagues averaged more than $4.4 million in revenue but nearly $7.6 million in expenses, while Tier 3 leagues generated just $76,000 against $182,000 in costs, underscoring that costs continue to outpace revenues across all tiers. A Deloitte analysis of elite women’s sport projected global revenues surpassing $2.35 billion in 2025, up from $1.88 billion the previous year, with football contributing a significant share of that expansion. The Fifpro report separately projected women’s football revenues climbing from about $581 million in 2024 to more than $1 billion by 2027, yet noted that salary growth has not kept pace for the majority of players.
Separate Fifpro workload monitoring published in December 2025 revealed that elite players faced extreme match congestion, with the top 15 recording more than 50 appearances in a season for the first time since 2020-21 and some enduring back-to-back fixtures with less than five days’ recovery. Aitana Bonmati topped that list with 60 matches and 4,851 minutes across club and country, according to the Fifpro data, while many others logged extensive international travel that compounded physical and mental strain. The union called for expanded domestic leagues and new competitions to address both overload at the top and underload in lower tiers where players average far fewer than one match per week.
The latest Fifpro survey of 407 national team players from 41 countries, conducted between August and October 2025 and referenced in related reporting, found that two-thirds earned less than $20,000 annually from football with one in four relying on jobs outside the sport. One-third of those players had contracts of one year or less while 22 percent had no contract at all, the union’s data showed. Culvin stated that financial stability is a cornerstone of any career and warned it is a risk to the sustainability of the game because players will be inclined to leave football early to make ends meet.
Fifa has identified accelerating the growth of the women’s game and developing professionalisation as key objectives, according to statements accompanying its benchmarking work. International transfers in women’s football rose to 2,440 in 2025 with spending reaching $28.6 million, a fourfold increase since 2023, a separate Fifa transfer report indicated. The combined data from Fifpro and Fifa assessments point to rapid commercial expansion that has yet to deliver equitable improvements in working conditions for most players.
