The fight for a place on the pitch
August 7, 2026
Image: Dick, Kerr Ladies team (1923), photographer unknown. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons
Georgia Wolfin explores the history of women’s football and the barriers that shape the game today
As England celebrated a third-place finish at the 2026 World Cup this summer, football fever swept the country. Flag bunting draped outside pubs, ‘It’s Coming Home’ blaring through speakers, and England kits all around. As the country rallied behind the Three Lions, it is important not to forget the Lionesses, who delivered European glory as recently as last year but who continue to be underpaid and underappreciated for their contributions to English football.
The history of women’s football in the UK is a tumultuous one. The first recorded game of women’s football was played in March 1895, and the sport grew rapidly in popularity during the first world war, attracting large crowds across the country. A 1920 game between Dick Kerr Ladies and St Helen’s at Goodison Park drew over 50,000 spectators.
However, at the end of the war women were expected to return to the domestic sphere, and the success of women’s football was considered a threat to the men’s game. This led the Football Association (FA) to ban women’s teams from playing on grounds affiliated with the organisation in 1921, a restriction that remained in place until 1971. It took another 38 years for the FA to introduce central contracts for women, allowing football to become a career, and a further nine years for the establishment of a professional women’s football league in England.
The gender pay gap is a concept that measures the difference between the median hourly earnings of women and men, represented as a proportion of those of men. According to the Office for National Statistics, April 2025, the gender pay gap for full-time employees in the UK was 6.9% in April 2025, having fallen from 7.1% a year earlier and by more than a quarter over the last decade. While progress is being made, football remains a field where the gender pay gap is still highly prominent.
The supposed higher quality of men’s football is often used to justify underinvestment in women’s football
After winning the 2023 women’s World Cup, Spain received a record-breaking $10.5 million in prize money, including $270,000 for each player. However, this pales in comparison to the $51 million that was received by the winner of this summer’s men’s World Cup. Zooming in on domestic football in England, players in the English Premier League (the top tier of men’s football) on average earn over £3 million annually, whereas players in the Women’s Super League (the respective top tier of women’s football) face an average salary of just £47,000. America also provides an interesting example of this, women’s professional leagues in the US have historically seen many of the world’s best players, while this is not the case for men’s professional leagues.
American football leagues impose a team salary cap, which in 2021 sat at $682,500 for the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League), in the same year the cap in the men’s MLS (Major League Soccer) was $4.9 million. A common justification for underinvestment in women’s football is the supposed higher quality of men’s football. While physical differences do exist, a study found that when gender was obscured through blurring of the players, participants did not observe any differences in quality between men’s and women’s football.
FIFA’s increased investment in the 2019 women’s World Cup led to higher ticket sales and global TV viewership, showing that investment is key to improving commercial success. But there is still a long way to go; England’s men reached the semi-finals of the 2026 World Cup and finished third, taking home £14 million in prize money. Meanwhile, the Lionesses took home £4.3 million in prize money after winning Euro 2025 and becoming the first senior English team to defend a title.
This is not to say progress has not been made. The 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada saw all of England’s matches televised live by the BBC for the first time, and over 16 million people watched the final of the 2025 women’s EUROs live on TV, making it the most viewed television moment of 2025. FIFA’s president in 2023 expressed goals for prize money between men’s and women’s World Cups to be matched by 2027, but we must wait and see whether this will materialise. As the Women’s World Cup returns next year, we must hope that England will rally behind the Lionesses as strongly as they did this summer.
