Messi makes 272 times more than world's highest-paid female footballer

The earnings of the highest-paid female football players are not comparable to their counterparts', not at all.

During recent years and decades, Feminism has been playing a key role in regaining women's rights, but still, the wage of a female footballer is not fair-considering the different factors affecting the quantity of income such as fame, radiance, and talent of a player.

The financial aspect of women's football in Europe and America is not promising, let alone in Asia with that diversity, cultural differences, and gender boundaries.
According to a survey done by a France Football magazine, the pay gap between males and females is so vast. Such a shame for this modern world. New data revealing the world's highest-paid football players have thrown into sharp contrast the difference in earnings between stars at the top of the men's and women's games.

Soccer magazine France Football's annual ranking of the best-paid players in the sport showed that FC Barcelona and Argentina captain Lionel Messi was men's football's highest earner, taking home $141 million in salary and sponsorships last year.

According to Insider, Carli Lloyd, the USWNT star and the highest earner in women's football, made just $518,000 in 2019, a year in which she and her US teammates won the Women's World Cup, becoming global stars. 

A simple calculation by Insider found that Messi's earnings were more than 272 times larger than Lloyd's. Put another way, Lloyd earned just 0.3% of what Messi did in 2019.

This pay gap is beyond anyone's expectations.

The next highest earners in women's football were USWNT captain Megan Rapinoe, who made $447,000, and Norwegian Ada Hegerberg crowned Women's Ballon d'Or winner in 2018, who made $431,000.

Messi made 315 times and 327 times more than the pair in 2019 respectively.

It should be noted that Messi played significantly more football in 2019 than Lloyd, playing 64 games for club and country in the 2019 calendar year, compared to 24 played by Lloyd.

In March 2019, the U.S. women's national time filed a lawsuit against governing body United States Soccer Federation for gender discrimination and unequal pay. 

According to the Guardian, the lawsuit alleges that the men receive pay bonuses as much as £13,303 ($17,625). They report that this is almost twice as much as the women receive – for having won zero World Cups and even failing to qualify for the 2018 edition in Russia.

The Premier League's male players earn an average of £2.7m ($3.5m) a year – paling in comparison to what the Women's Super League players earn.

Manchester City, despite having been credited with changing the landscape of the women's game by launching their own women's team, revealed that their women's side earn 88 percent less than their male counterparts on an hourly basis according to Bloomberg. Other WSL clubs including Arsenal, Liverpool and Everton, posted similarly large disparities.