Equal Pay for women footballers an historic day for Irish Sport
Labour sport spokesperson Mark Wall has welcomed the announcement today by the FAI that the women’s senior team will now receive equal pay to our men’s team.
Senator Wall said:
“This is a very welcome move today by the FAI and an historic day for Irish sport. It sends a critically important signal to all those involved in sport. In recent years we’ve seen a number of countries like Brazil, Norway, England, Australia and New Zealand lead the way by ensuring that their women football teams are paid the same as male players.
“Today’s news is rightly recognised as a ground breaking deal and means that the Senior women’s team will now get the same match fees when they appear in the Irish jersey, with immediate effect. I want to pay tribute to the FAI and the both squads for the way they went about securing this deal. Our captains have shown real leadership.
“Female sports players need to have the same incentives and supports as their male counterparts and should not feel disenfranchised on account of their gender. How can you expect a woman to train and play as hard as her male counterpart, when in some cases she will only be paid less than half the salary of her male counterpart? Today’s announcement by the FAI and the commitment to an agreed equality of approach is a welcome development.
“Ireland has made big strides in tackling gender inequality in sport and elsewhere but more work still needs to be done in relation to tackling the gender pay gap and football is showing us the importance of leading by example with this one action bringing us one step closer towards closing the gap and will put Ireland on a growing list of countries that pay female sports players equally.”