If you have been a fan of women’s football you have realized, since day one, that women in this sport (and society) have a continuous uphill battle. You don’t have to be a sociologist to see how the role of women in sport is not usually riding a steady upward trajectory. There are lots of periods, in the micro and the macro, in which it is very much a one step forward, two step back situation.
One of the first podcasts I ever did was about player’s lives post retirement. I was so intrigued about it and I was naive and hopeful enough to think that, specially after the lionesses winning the Euros, that they would all be able to make tons of money and retire and live happily for a long time.
Before the Euros The FA wanted the lionesses to be household names by the end of the tournament and I truly believe that mission was accomplished and surpassed, yet hearing Leah talk about how she doesn’t make enough money to retire is pretty wild and it worries me and fundamentally hurts me and bothers me to my very core. Specially in a sport where at the highest level there’s sooooooo much money.
Imagine that Martin Odegaard has to have a plan B. And this is not about women deserving equal pay or not. Of course they deserve it. This is about how absolutely insane it is to think, as a symbol, that the captain of Arsenal Women would need a plan b. Like why would Kim Little, THE Kim Little, ever need to worry about anything money related after what she has done in her career and for world football.
One way for them to make more money is the game growing and growing. Like I’ve said before, the growth of the game brings with it greed and greed brings toxic masculinity and this is something that might sadly be inevitable, unless there is a clear ceiling to what they can earn and then they have to explore other ways of earning money, and I have several ideas which I don’t have to share here but we cannot expect every single footballer to have an entrepreneur mind and be business savvy. That’s not a realistic expectation.
However, as a professional musician, this is a harsh reality. We all have to think that way and most of us have never had any sort of business courses unless we did business/management at a music college. We have to try to develop a brand, which I don’t really like because it implies social media and that means an endless pit of validation searching; but there are other things as well.
I can definitely see a universe where retired footballers do incredibly well for themselves, even if they don’t stay football adjacent. I would think it’s only a matter of time until we see them do and try many different things, like they have had to do for ages, but hopefully in other arenas they will be able to make more money, quite soon.
d ❤
THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
You can listen to my music HERE
A very subjective look into AWFC 
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