There is an enormous disparity in how much prize money FIFA pays in the men's and women's World Cups
All 16 national federations for the teams that failed to get out of the group stage at the 2014 men's World Cup received $8 million from FIFA. That was $6 million more than the winning national federation will receive at this year's Women's World Cup, and that is just the start of the disparity.
Overall, the 32 federations representing teams of the men's World Cup took home $358 million. Germany, the champions, won $35 million and the other 31 federations made $8-25 million with an average of $10.4 million. Meanwhile, the Women's World Cup champion will win $2 million, with the other 23 federations taking home an average of $650,000.
To make matters worse, even though the total prize money at this year's Women's World Cup is $15 million, up from $10 million in 2011, the winner's share has doubled from $1 million to $2 million, the average share for the non-winning federations is actually down from an average of $670,000 to $650,000 because the tournament field was increased from 16 to 24 teams.
