IF I asked you who the top earner in the Premier League is you might say Wayne Rooney. And you’d be right.
How about if I asked you how much Manchester United’s new signing Radamel Falcao rakes in? You’d probably guess over £250,000-a-week, and it wouldn’t be a surprise given how many times we’ve had the figure thrust upon us since he joined on loan from Monaco 10 days ago.
You might even go as far as to tell me that he’s 28-years-old, a Colombian international and that he sadly missed out on this summer’s World Cup in Brazil due to injury.
But can the same be said of the leading women in football who play for some of the biggest clubs in the country, whose wages are incomparable to those in the men’s game.
Arsenal’s Irish players, Niamh Fahey and Emma Byrne receive earnings dwarfed by the likes of their male counterparts, Mesut Özil and newcomer Alexis Sanchez.
This is despite the ladies team bombarding the trophy cabinet with 23 pieces of silverware in the barren nine year period since Arsene Wenger’s 2005 FA Cup victory that only ended this summer with a repeat conquest, a Charity Shield win and a series of overzealous celebrations to boot.
For such a mammoth achievement from the Arsenal Ladies, the level of recognition they received in accordance is horrendously disproportionate.
Gunners midfielder Fahey will be lining out for Ireland tomorrow (September 13) when the team face Slovakia in their penultimate game as they fight for a play-off place that could see them qualify for next year’s World Cup.
But despite adorning the green jersey and revelling in national pride at such a prestigious tournament, the team’s efforts will easily slip under the radar of most.
After all, could you tell me where the world’s leading female footballers will be contending for World Cup glory?
I don’t blame anyone reading this for not knowing its taking place in Canada. How would you know unless the media give the competition greater coverage?
Instead, the focus is on men’s qualification to the Euros in 2016, a tournament taking place a year after one international women’s team will be crowned World Champions!
I completely support the achievements and excitement of men’s football, but the commitment, work ethic and talent of women in football should also be given greater recognition. Give credit where credit is due, and working a ‘normal’ job during the day, training with your squad during the evenings, having known that this is the realistic prospect of a female trying to make it as a footballer, certainly deserves credit.
I sat in the stands at Craven Cottage in June as Martin O’Neill’s Ireland took on Italy in a friendly, but the atmosphere created by the roars of the fans was so alive you wouldn’t have guessed it was only a warm-up game for the Azzurri ahead of their trip to Rio.
It’s this that I find such a shame for women’s football.
A summer ago, I was in the press box at the Emirates Stadium in north London, watching the Arsenal Ladies take on Liverpool in the Women’s Super League, and it was an eye opener.
Not because it was my first time in the stadium; I’ve been to watch Arsenal before, the men’s team that is, but never had I actually seen the vast majority of the 60,000 red seats empty during a game.
Now, I understand that there’s not a huge amount of money in women’s football, that it doesn’t drum up the same interest, the same buzz that men’s football does, but does that make it right for these women to play to an almost nothing crowd?
It’s surely hard enough being a member of the sex that receives little financial reward in comparison to men in the sport, all the while slogging at day jobs that require players to request annual leave to attend away games?
The financial aspect of the game is undeniably a huge aspect of the inequality that still surrounds the sport, but what’s worse is the lack of widespread recognition that these females receive.
The world of rugby seems to be heading on the right path, with the media celebrating Ireland’s historic win over New Zealand in last month’s Women’s Rugby World Cup. And rightly so.
But, like football, I think that greater prominence should be given to deserving individuals who go by unnoticed.
In a year when two of Ireland’s greatest rugby captains retired, there’d most likely only be one name that immediately springs to mind. Fiona Coghlan’s probably wouldn’t be one of them.
At 33, she recently retired as one of Ireland’s most successful rugby captains after 13 years and 85 caps, but there was hardly any fuss.
She returns to her role as a teacher this month and will slip back into a life that she juggled whist driving Ireland to contend for international trophies.
It’s unfathomable that the same could ever be imagined of Brian O’Driscoll and that’s the attitude that needs to change.
