Fifpro: Women's Football Boom Leaves Players Behind

Women's football is on course to become a billion-dollar industry — but the players building it are being left behind. That is the stark warning from Fifpro, the global players' union, which has published the most extensive review of the women's game in almost a decade. Its 2026 Global Employment Report: Working Conditions in Women's Football, released on 12 October, draws on surveys and interviews with more than 800 top-flight footballers worldwide, and it paints a picture of a sport booming at the top while remaining precarious for the majority.

The headline finding is a commercial success story: global revenue in the women's game is projected to rise from about $581 million (£439 million) in 2024 to more than $1 billion (£756 million) in 2027, driven by bigger broadcast deals, sponsorship and crowds at leagues such as England's Women's Super League and America's National Women's Soccer League. Yet according to Fifpro, that growth is not reaching the people who make the game — and the strain is pushing many toward early retirement.

The billion-dollar projection

The revenue trajectory outlined in the report is genuinely remarkable. In three years, the women's game's global income is expected to nearly double, crossing the symbolic billion-dollar threshold by 2027 — a figure that would have seemed fanciful when Fifpro last conducted a major review in 2017. The money is flowing into the sport's visible summit: elite clubs, flagship competitions and marquee players, all benefiting from surging broadcast rights, corporate sponsorship and record attendances.

But the union argues that the headline numbers mask an uncomfortable distribution problem. Fifpro's head of women's football, Alex Culvin, describes an industry "very focused on the top 5% of players" while the rest — the 95% of the global workforce — endure late pay, short contracts and incomes that do not cover the cost of playing. The boom is real; it is simply not shared.

"I think there's a wake-up call needed for the ecosystem, that our players are suffering and that there is not the kind of wraparound support and accountability that's needed for players," Culvin said.

The pay reality behind the growth

The survey's financial data shows real progress alongside persistent insecurity. Average inflation-adjusted monthly salaries have tripled since 2017 to $2,601 (£1,970), and 41% of players now have an agent, up from just 14% a decade ago. But the averages conceal huge regional disparities: typical monthly earnings range from $6,450 (£4,886) in North America and $3,982 (£3,016) in central and Western Europe down to $878 (£664) in Eastern Europe and just $480 (£363) in Africa. The median salary worldwide stands at $1,669 (£1,250). Because those figures are published in US dollars, converting them into other currencies is the only way to see what they really mean for a player's spending power at home.

Contract security remains fragile. Only 78% of the top-tier players surveyed reported having a written contract, and 82% said they were paid by their club. Barely half — 57% — said their payment covered the costs of playing football. Although the average contract length has improved to 19 months, up from 12 a decade ago, only two-thirds of players received pay for the full 12 months of the year. A quarter experienced late payments over the past two seasons, and 42% had no pension provision at all.

It is hardly surprising, then, that 59% of respondents named financial reasons as a factor that could drive them out of football early. The game's economic engine is accelerating — but many of its drivers are still running on empty.

A mental health crisis in plain sight

The report's most alarming findings concern players' wellbeing. Psychological stress was cited by 46% of respondents as a reason they might leave football early — a dramatic rise from 13% in Fifpro's 2017 survey. More than half of those surveyed, 57%, reported struggling with their mental health, and of those, half said their club provided no professional psychological support.

Culvin links the crisis directly to the pressures of visibility. As the women's game has grown more public, players have been pushed to maintain personal profiles — through social media, appearances and sponsorship activity — to supplement wages that often do not stretch far enough on their own. "Players are now very visible," Culvin explained. "Players are not only expected to be visible, but are obligated to be visible because of the low income to subsidise the lack of solid income they receive."

The result is a vicious circle: greater exposure brings greater scrutiny, which brings greater stress — all borne by players who frequently lack the support systems that their counterparts in the men's game take for granted. Culvin argues that despite growing public awareness of mental health in sport, players are regularly left to cope on their own, without adequate help from clubs or international bodies.

Proof that targeted regulation works

Not every trend in the report is negative — and the union is keen to highlight what has changed. The most significant improvement concerns parenthood. In 2017, nearly half of players considering an early exit said that wanting a family could drive them out of football. In 2026, that figure has fallen to 19%.

Fifpro attributes the shift in large part to the maternity protections it helped draft, which were introduced by FIFA in 2021 and updated two years ago. "What we've concluded, which I think is incredibly important, is that targeted regulatory intervention works — maternity regulations were introduced in 2021," Culvin said. It is a concrete demonstration, the union argues, that when the game's governing bodies act decisively to protect players, conditions improve quickly and measurably.

What Fifpro is demanding

The union's message to the game's power-brokers is blunt: the solution is not to slow down commercial growth, but to make sure growth and welfare develop together. "There doesn't need to be a choice for those between commercial growth and player protection," Culvin said. "Those two things need to go hand in hand and work in tandem."

The report's core demand is that players gain a genuine seat at the table when decisions affecting them are made. "What we're saying is enough is enough and the industry needs to react to the players' needs and centralise the players' voice, ensure that players have a seat at the table when decisions that affect them are being made about them," Culvin concluded.

The timing is significant. With the women's game heading toward its billion-dollar milestone in 2027 and the FIFA Women's World Cup in Brazil looming as the sport's next shop window, the question of who benefits from the boom has never been more urgent. Fifpro's report makes the case that the answer, right now, is far too few of the people who actually play.