Equal Pay for England Men's and Women's Football Managers

Equal pay at this top tier is an essential material and symbolic step towards gender equality.

Lionesses manager Sarina Wiegman has won the Euros with England and will lead them into Sunday’s World Cup final against Spain. She guided the Netherlands to victory at the Euros in 2017 before taking them to the World Cup final in 2019.

The men's England football manager Gareth Southgate led England to the 2018 World Cup semi-final in Russia, the quarter-finals of Qatar 2022 and the Euro 2020 final, but has yet to win a trophy with England.

Southgate is reportedly paid £5m a year, a significant uplift on Wiegman’s supposed £400,000 salary.

An FA representative stated “If we take money from one area it then has to come off another,” he said. “I can’t tell you the list of great ideas we get every week for things, some of which are in women’s football, some are in para football, some of which are men’s football, some of which could be building more pitches for kids."

The FA should take this essential material and symbolic step towards gender equality, by taking the money to pay Wiegman equally from Southgate's salary.

This would leave each manager with roughly £2.7m a year salary plus bonuses.

Wiegman and the Lionesses represent the frontline of excellence in women's sport, and sport as a whole.

Wiegman is the more successful manager. At least she deserves pay parity with the men's.