⚽️ 68 Soccer Nations Where the Women Are Tops

Ed. Note: The following post and infographic were provided by Soccer Training Lab.

The World Cup is currently taking place in Russia, bringing together the top 32 soccer teams from around the world for the month long spectacle. Whilst the eyes of the world are focusing on the men’s competition we wanted to take a look at how the competing nations compare to their female counterparts.

The women’s game is certainly on an upward curve, particularly in the US, where more and women are involved in both playing and coaching the game, and is not surprising that the US Women’s National Team top the FIFA rankings, whilst the men’s team didn’t qualify for the World Cup and rank a lowly 25th position.

A recent article by the soccer reviewswebsite discovered that this wasn’t an isolated case and there were a total of 68 different countries where the women’s team performed better than the men in the FIFA rankings as you can see in the infographic below:

The game has definitely come a long way since ex UEFA President Sepp Blatter proclaimed that women should “wear tighter shorts and low cut shirts… to create a more female aesthetic”, but there is still a huge inequality in the game between the sexes. For example, the average global wage of the female soccer player is only $600 and only 35% of women competing for their national teams receive any form of pay at all.

Recently, however, there have been some progressive moves made in the game with both the Norwegian Football Association and New Zealand’s Football Ferns, declaring that male and female players representing their country will now receive equal pay. Not surprising really, as in both of these nations, the women’s team are doing a whole lot better than the men!!!

We’d love to hear your opinion on the progress of women’s soccer in the comments below:

• Do you think women soccer players should be paid equally?
• Is more investment needed in the game worldwide?