In another landmark agreement, the Football Association of Wales (FAW) has announced that both their Senior Women’s and Men’s National teams will receive equal pay – with the agreement covering the period up to and including the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
For that to happen, however, the Wales men’s senior team agreed to a 25% pay cut to enable a 25% rise for the women’s team.
The announcement comes after a year of on-going discussions over pay parity, with FAW chief executive Noel Mooney in talks with a player representative group that included Wales’ most-capped player Jess Fishlock, women’s captain Sophie Ingle and Wales’ record goal scorer Helen Ward.
“Together Stronger has been the mantra across the Cymru National Teams for us all, both on and off the pitch as we look to put Wales on the world stage. As part of the FAW’s strive towards equality, we are now proud to announce that together, our Men’s and Women’s teams have agreed to an equal pay structure for future international matches. We hope that this will allow future generations of boys and girls to see that there is equality across Welsh International football, which is important for society as a whole. With this agreement in place, we will now look ahead to the UEFA EURO 2024 and 2025 qualifying campaigns, as we aim to see further success across both our senior teams in the near future,” said a joint statement released by the Wales Men’s and Women’s Senior National teams.
In agreeing to this deal, Wales join other nations like Australia, England, the USA, Norway, Brazil, Spain, New Zealand as well as South Africa in paying their senior national teams equal amounts.
The FAW responded through their Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Noel Mooney:
“The FAW is a modern, progressive movement that seeks to improve each day. This is another step towards becoming one of the world’s great sports organisations and we thank both the Men’s and Women’s squads for their brilliant co-operation in getting this agreed.”
Ranked 32nd in the world, the Wales Women’s National team failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while their male counterparts were knocked out in the group stages of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Men’s team is ranked 28th in the world.
“The agreement is significant as it also sends out an important message to the players of the future, in that anyone who represents Cymru in the senior squads are pulling on the same shirt and are representing the same team from an equal footing,” concluded the statement from the FAW.
