FIFPro has launched a report aimed at raising 'global minimum standards' within women's football.
The global players' association has released a 57-page report, entitled Raising Our Game, which is billed as "a forward-thinking report about women's professional football which puts players at the heart of the planned development and rebuilding of the sport after the coronavirus pandemic."
On Tuesday, AFC Fylde's womens team was disbanded, the first team cut amid the financial fallout caused by the suspension of sporting events across Europe. Reading FC placed its women's team on the government furlough plan this week, the first team in the top-tier Women's Super League to do so.
For the report, FIFPro surveyed national team players from countries represented at the Women's World Cup in France last year and other nations: 186 players from 18 different countries responded. FIFPro also requested information and data from all 24 federations represented at the World Cup and all six FIFA confederations.
According to the report, 54 per cent of players said their teams did not have adequate support staffs, and 61 per cent said they did not know if their club had a defined strategy for growth for its women's team.
"Women's football cannot follow in the footsteps of the men's game, nor be positioned as its little sister," the report said. "We must learn from the challenges and opportunities we have seen develop across the football industry and use this knowledge to help lay the foundation for a sustainable global employment market built on healthy and safe working environments, the report stated."
The women's game had been on an upward trajectory, the report noted, boosted by investment and high-profile corporate sponsorship deals with firms including Barclays, Visa and Budweiser, as well as other factors.
However, attendance at games has not reflected that growth. Total attendance at the World Cup fell from a high of 1,353,506 in 2015 when the field was expanded from 16 to 24 teams to 1,131,312 last summer in France.