Women’s Champions League prize 160 times lower than men’s

Barcelona, May 21 (EFE). – FC Barcelona won their first UEFA Women’s Champions League, but the financial reward of 460,000 euros is about 160 times smaller than that of their male counterparts.

The large gap shows clubs’ continued lack of investment in the women’s soccer teams.

The team that wins this year’s Champions League trophy on May 29 in Porto — Manchester City or Chelsea — will receive over 80 million euros.

In 2019, Liverpool made 82.4 million euros from winning the trophy of the world’s greatest club competition.

UEFA said it would increase their investments in next year’s Women’s Champions League. Clubs will receive 400,000 euros to participate in the competition, and the winner will receive 1.4 million euros, meaning the prize will only be three times bigger than this year’s.

These are significant figures for the budgets that are managed in European women’s soccer.

Barça has a budget of 6 million euros for this soccer season, 4 million less than that of Olympique Lyon, champions of the five previous editions of the Champions League and which currently has the biggest.

Of the 6 million, just over 3.5 million euros account for players’ salaries.

The budget drawn up by former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu’s board of directors forecast revenues of 4.8 million. Of these 3.8 are from marketing and advertising, coming almost entirely from Stanley, the team’s main sponsor and whose contract ends in 2022. The remaining 1 million is from broadcasting and television rights.

Last Sunday’s Champions League final against Chelsea had a cumulative audience of 1,670,000 viewers on Televisió de Catalunya, achieving a 28.4% share.