NSW Government resist push for prizemoney parity ahead of FIFA World Cup
Fears Sydney could be robbed of World Cup fixtures have brought a campaign for equal prizemoney to a halt with State Government.
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The world’s biggest women’s sporting event – the FIFA Women’s World Cup – has been used as one of the reasons for shutting down talks to help close the prizemoney gender pay gap in sport.
Last year, Sydney longboarder Lucy Small and surfer and journalist Kate Allman headed a campaign called Equal Pay for Equal Play which petitioned the NSW Government to introduce a prizemoney equity bill.
Specifically, they argued for a bill ruling that, in order for any NSW sporting club or organisation to be eligible for government funding, it must offer equal prize money for men and women who compete in equivalent competitions.
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A similar Equal Pay for Equal Play campaign was successful in California in 2019, when female surfers competing at the infamous Mavericks big-wave competition were earning less than half the prize money of their male counterparts.
While a handful of NSW councils have moved or are now planning to adopt the campaign objectives at a local level, including Randwick, Woollahra, Waverley and Ballina councils, Ms Small said talks had stalled at a State Government level.
Ms Small said at a meeting late last year, a NSW government official said the government would not risk losing the Sydney fixtures to interstate locations by pressuring FIFA into offering prizemoney parity at the Women’s World Cup.
Nine host cities across Australia and New Zealand will host the 2023 Women’s World Cup, including Stadium Australia and Sydney Football Stadium in Sydney.
The comment comes as leading international sports administrator Rachel Froggatt, Secretary General of the International Working Group on Women and Sport, said sports at the top end were being left behind by grassroots change.
Froggatt, a key speaker at SportNXT conference being held at Centrepiece, Melbourne Park, next week, said: “I am not surprised by this response (from the NSW Government).”
“As a general rule, I am a big fan of these kind of mandates – stopping government money unless there’s equity.
“There is evidence time and time again that this kind of approach will have an impact.
“But the FIFA World Cup is so enormous – and it comes down to the influence level.
“The commerciality of FIFA World Cup does have knock on ramifications – and if they were to introduce a piece of legislation like that, what would the flow on effect be?
“Would it decrease or even eliminate the positive flow on effects of hosting an event like the Women’s World Cup.
“Gender equality will not happen overnight – it is incremental.
“But we are also seeing that sports at the top end are being left behind sports at the middle or lower end.
“Grassroots and mid tier sports are waking up the big sports by moving ahead of them and leaving them behind.”
Minister Tourism and Sport Stuart Ayres said: “In relation to eligibility for Government grants, the objectives and focus of our grant programs are very much on supporting women and girls in their sporting pursuits.
“It is a requirement for successful applicants to put a women’s strategy in place. To remove or modify those grants would compromise the enhancement of women’s participation and engagement in sport.
“If we want women to be getting paid more for playing professional sport, we need more people to watch and engage with female sport. The professionalisation of sport is funded through the people who watch it.
“People who watch it, then generate sponsorship revenue and sponsorship revenue gets reinvested back into the athlete through their salary. No matter how much the Government invests, it is not going to outweigh the amount of revenue that is generated through non-government sponsorship.”
Small said: “According to the office of sport, the Matildas are Australia’s most loved sporting team, yet the NSW Government seems to have backed down in the face of FIFA when it comes to awarding them equal prizemoney for their efforts.”
“The NSW talk about creating a legacy through hosting this magnificent event … what a legacy parity in prizemoney would be.
“ All that aside, when it comes to public money it should be spent fairly. That is the government’s job.”
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