The Lionesses are on their way to Australia; their World Cup campaign begins against Haiti on July 22; players remain unhappy after talks with the FA regarding performance-related bonuses ended without resolution; boycotting some media duties could be considered as an option
Friday 7 July 2023 07:43, UK
The Lionesses are on their way to Australia to begin their World Cup campaign, but Sky Sports News has been told the players remain unhappy no FA bonuses are being offered to them for the tournament.
In the last few days, further meetings have taken place between senior England players and FA officials, which broke up without agreement.
The players are adamant they deserve direct payments from the FA, above and beyond what they will earn from FIFA, though the FA's position is that players are already receiving a 300 per cent pay rise compared to the last World Cup.
The players are now considering their options, and while there are no plans to strike or take action which may impact their involvement in the World Cup, the squad will discuss how they might respond once they have settled into their training base in Australia.
Boycotting some media duties has been mooted as an option, but that has yet to be discussed by the squad as a whole.
The FA has pointedly refused to comment on the situation, saying only that they are committed to the confidentiality of the process and never publicly discuss financial issues or payments to players.
All the FA has told Sky Sports News is that discussions with the players are ongoing.
However, sources outside the FA have confirmed that the governing body has now made a further financial offer, separate from the FIFA-funded World Cup bonuses, and unconnected to the World Cup performance.
Those payments would involve money paid by some of the FA's commercial partners being used to supplement the players earnings.
The FA hopes this will help resolve the matter, so as to avoid any disruption to England's preparations for the World Cup.
That offer is now being considered by the England playing squad.
It's understood there has been no change to the FA's position regarding bonus payments, which for the first time have been set by FIFA, and standardised for countries across the tournament.
FIFA's idea, which was supported by the English FA in the planning process, is to make sure players earn the same level of bonus, whatever country they are from.
So any player knocked out in the group stages will earn £24,000. Players who win the World Cup will be guaranteed £213,000 each - all of that money comes from FIFA's prize pot, but is paid via the national federation.
Those figures are three times what they were in 2019, and partly explain the reluctance of the FA to offer still more money to players.
However, because those bonuses come from FIFA money, the players themselves feel the FA should be subsidising their efforts further from the FA coffers.
Their argument is that, if the Lionesses progress to the latter stages of the World Cup, it will boost the FA and its commercial revenues, and the players should share in such success.
The players point to the total money being earned by the USA, which is considerably higher than for England's players, because of the unique collective bargaining agreements in place in North America, which sit outside FIFA's prize-giving guidelines.
Those funding rules, set by FIFA within the last month, were much higher than the English FA expected, guaranteeing that 60 per cent of all the money the FA earns from the tournament should go to the players in bonuses.
That has meant for the first time in the men's or women's game, the FA stands to lose money for a major tournament, because on top of the player payments, they have to fund flights, hotels, support staff and other logistical costs.
Sky Sports has also been told, in addition to player bonuses, the FA has agreed to pay £10,000 per player to go towards the cost of family and friends travelling to watch them in Australia.
FA officials plan to sit down with the players to discuss future remuneration after the tournament has finished, but the players want more cast-iron guarantees of payment in advance.
This year's tournament will be held in Australia and New Zealand making it the first-ever co-hosted Women's World Cup.
The tournament starts on July 20 with the final taking place on August 20 in Sydney at the Accor Stadium.
The USA are the defending champions and are looking to become the first team in the competition's history to win the tournament three times in a row.
