Sarina Wiegman would be eligible for a bonus worth up to £200,000 if her English side beat Germany in the final of the European Championship 2022 for women on Sunday.
The Lionesses head coach is estimated to be entitled to a bumper check worth around 50 per cent of the £400,000 salary she will receive in her incentivized contract.
Both she and men’s team manager Gareth Southgate have written more performance-related terms in their deals than predecessors. Details of her estimated bonus come after Telegraph Sport revealed three weeks ago how the players also receive a bonus of £55,000 each in the most generous arrangement ever agreed with the FA.
Even with the improved terms, the team total of around £1.3million is much lower than the £5million bonus the England men would have received had they won the European Championship last summer.
However, the women’s bonus would represent a significantly higher percentage of UEFA’s prize money. The winners of the women’s tournament can receive up to just over £1.7million, depending on how many group stage matches they win, as opposed to the £28.5million Italy took home after winning last summer.
And with a fee of £2,000 per match, some players could take home more than £72,000 at the end of a successful tournament, which is more than many professional players in this country would earn over the course of two seasons.
The men’s teams agreed several years ago to donate their performances to charities because of the huge sums of money they get at club level, and while England’s female players understandably keep more of their bonuses because they are much less generously rewarded, sources have said the women’s team has made charitable donations of their match money on “multiple occasions” over the past tournament cycle.
Given the average wage in the Women’s Super League is less than £50,000, the bonus amount this summer is a major boost for England’s players. Female players still earn significantly less than their male counterparts, but incomes have risen over the past 10 to 15 years as the professional game has expanded its appeal and commercial revenue streams.
The top earners in the WSL, such as Arsenal’s Dutch international Vivianne Miedema and Chelsea striker Sam Kerr, are taking home more than £250,000 from their clubs. But at the lower end of the scale, young players, with their first professional contract, are believed to earn just £20,000 a year.
In addition to bonuses, winning the tournament will also inevitably lead to new endorsement deals for the star players. The FA said in response to a Times report on Wiegman’s bonus: “We never comment on contracts.”