Football Federation Australia CEO Says Men Have To Sacrifice Pay For Women

Football Federation Australia CEO David Gallop said that improving pay and conditions "for Australia's disgruntled women's team would require the country's top male players to give up a portion of their incomes," according to Ian Ransom of REUTERS. FFA and the players' union "have been locked in a protracted dispute over the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement covering the national men's and women's teams." The relatively humble salaries "earned by Australia's top women has been a hot-button issue in the country since the Matildas made the quarter-finals of the World Cup." But "as talks with the union resumed in Sydney on Monday," Gallop said that "there would be no extra money put on the table." Gallop said, "If (the union) wish to move some money from the male professional players pot to the Matildas then we're certainly open to that. What we're not open to is additional money because the game simply doesn't have it" (REUTERS, 9/21).