Jamaica Shines Light on Shortchanged Women’s World Cup Teams
The Reggae Girlz, as Jamaica’s women’s soccer team is known, are preparing to depart for the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand along with teams from 31 other countries to compete on the sport’s biggest stage. But the Reggae Girlz’ preparations on the pitch have been overshadowed by growing concerns off it as they fight for logistical and financial support from their country’s football federation.
They’re not alone. Players and staff members from a handful of the participating countries have gone public with the financial challenges they’ve faced in the lead-up to this summer’s tournament.
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On June 15, several of the Reggae Girlz shared their concerns about the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) on social media. Players said inadequate planning caused them to miss a series of planned friendly games, resulting in what they say is insufficient match preparation ahead of the World Cup. They also accused the JFF—which recently signed a sponsorship deal worth $400,000 with fast food chain KFC specifically for the women’s team’s World Cup campaign—of failing to meet contractually agreed payment obligations, saying they have “showed up repeatedly without” being paid.
— Cheyna Matthews (@Cheynalee_) June 15, 2023
The Reggae Girlz similarly took to social media four years ago after the 2019 World Cup in France to say they were not properly paid.
The reality is all too familiar for several other women’s national teams, including Nigeria’s Super Falcons and one of the World Cup favorites, Canada, who also are fighting similar battles for proper pay and national team support with just three weeks until the tournament Down Under begins.
But the Jamaican players have found an unlikely backstop to step in where their federation has failed them: Cedella Marley, daughter of reggae great Bob. The younger Marley sponsored the Reggae Girlz’ planned training camp in England in April of this year, according to Sandra Brower, mother of midfielder Havana Solaun. She’ll do the same as the team travels to Amsterdam for the next two weeks before heading to Australia for the tournament’s start.
Marley has been footing the financial bill for much of the Reggae Girlz’ training and travel for nearly a decade now, after finding out about the team’s struggles to find funding before the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada—an event it did not ultimately qualify for.
“I was raised to believe everyone has their right to fulfill their destiny and pursue their dreams, especially when you have a God-given talent,” Marley said in an interview with the Washington Post in 2019. “It was really unfair the girls were being treated this way just because some people believe soccer is a men’s-only game.”
Three World Cups and two qualifications later, the team has still had to seek help from outside supporters like Marley as they grapple with the shortcomings of the JFF.
In April, Brower launched a GoFundMe to help raise World Cup funds for the team’s supporting staff. In a phone call, she said she wants to help compensate the staff members “for their time spent with the girls keeping them healthy and for any travel expenses they incur.”
To date, the campaign has raised more than $30,000. It is unclear if the players’ concerns have been addressed in the time since they were aired on social media. None whom Sportico attempted to reach responded to requests for comment. The JFF also did not respond.
Speaking about the upcoming World Cup on a podcast this week, Nigerian national team coach Randy Waldrum said his team had also gone unpaid by Nigeria’s Football Federation (NFF) as recently as 2022. Waldrum also believes he and a backup goalkeeper for the Super Falcons were retaliated against when they brought complaints to the NFF, and discussed the challenges the team has had in the run-up to the tournament.
“I know we’re not prepared the way we need to be,” Waldrum said. “Been very frustrated with the [NFF] and the lack of support. We were supposed to have a camp for 10-12 days in Nigeria before going to Australia for another 10-15 days but the federation canceled the camp in Nigeria.”
Facing a pay equity battle reminiscent of the six-year dispute that ensnared U.S. Soccer and its women’s team until last year, Canada Soccer is currently negotiating what will likely be a temporary labor agreement with the country’s women’s team, who are the reigning Olympic champions, in order to hold camp before the World Cup. Negotiations for new contracts have gone on for more than a year, a span during which the women’s team went largely unpaid until a stopgap funding agreement was reached in March to compensate players for 2022.
While the issue of compensation in women’s soccer is not new, its continued persistence has become increasingly public as it clashes with FIFA’s focus on growing the women’s game.
FIFPRO—the global players’ union—has long emphasized that several countries still fail to compensate their women’s national team players adequately, if at all. In a letter sent to FIFA last October, it wrote that many players lack an “agreement with their member associations to ensure they receive fair and equitable treatment, including a guaranteed World Cup compensation, for example, as a portion of World Cup prize money.
Its arguments put pressure on the sport’s global governing body and led FIFA to allocate more than half of the prize money that will be awarded in Australia and New Zealand directly to players—earmarking at least $30,000 per participant, even for those who do not make it past the group stage. Each players’ cut will increase with each round their country advances, maxing out at a $270,000 payout for each member of the trophy-winning team, according to FIFA.
All 32 participating member associations—the governing bodies overseeing each country’s national team—will also receive a cut of the record $110 million total pool based on their team’s performance. The total prize money for the 2019 World Cup was $30 million, with each federation that left the tournament after group stages taking home $750,000. According to Brower, each of the Reggae Girlz received $1,200 for representing their country in France.
FIFA and FIFPRO say they will work together to disburse the player funds, but both organizations have yet to outline how they intend to ensure the plan’s execution, especially considering such public and persistent payment inequities. Neither FIFA nor FIFPRO responded to Sportico’s request to comment for this story.
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