Gender inequality in football is "more entrenched than in politics, business, medicine and space exploration," a salary survey that compared the employment status and pay of thousands of male and female footballers worldwide revealed, according to Martha Kelner of the London GUARDIAN. Among "a number of stark findings" was that the combined pay of those playing in the top seven women’s football leagues equals that of a single male footballer, Paris St. Germain's Neymar, who will earn £32.9M ($43.8M) for the '17-18 season. The survey showed that his salary is "almost exactly the same as 1,693 female players" in France, Germany, England, the U.S., Sweden, Australia and Mexico combined. There are "green shoots of change" in attempts to address the gender pay gap. The Norway FA forged an agreement earlier this year between its male and female internationals to "bring about parity." In Britain, Isthmian League Premier Division side Lewes announced a "similar initiative and now pays its women's team the same as its men's team." The gender pay gap is "often explained away by those who argue that men’s sport is so much more commercially successful than women’s sport." But Women in Sport CEO Ruth Holdaway claimed that is "not the whole story." Holdaway: "Women's sport has huge commercial value. You only have to look at the Women's Cricket World Cup this summer, where the final, which England won, was a sellout at Lord's" (GUARDIAN, 11/26).
