NOS Voetbal•vandaag, 18:00
Premier League football players take action: ‘Paid football = getting paid’
The players in the Women’s Eredivisie are sounding the alarm about the poor pay of football players in the Netherlands. In a joint statement they call on the KNVB, the clubs and sponsors to do something about this.
In the first match of this round, captains Tessa Wullaert of Fortuna Sittard and Kelly Steen of Telstar appeared on the field wearing special shirts. These shirts carried the message: “Professional football = getting paid”.
“We want to be able to make a living from football, so that we can live it. We do not want millions, we ask for a minimum wage. We want to be professionals,” says the statement, which is in the hands of the NOS.
ANPNot all professional football players are paid in the Premier League
The football players point out that the majority of players in the Premier League only have to make do with an expense allowance. Of the twelve Premier League clubs, only one club employs all its players full-time, the statement said. It is not stated which club that is.
Work and study
Although the top competition of women’s football was transferred from the amateur branch to professional football by the KNVB at the end of 2022, there is no question of professional football yet. The result is that most Premier League players also have to work or study in addition to football.
“Because we cannot focus on our sport full-time, it is practically impossible to reach the level that we and our fans aspire to,” the statement said.
“If we want to grow into a top competition in Europe within the ambition of the clubs and the KNVB, we as players must demand more,” the statement continues. “We jointly feel compelled to stand up for our rights and rights through this action. our dreams, along with the future dreams of today’s young girls.”
NOSThe statement from the players in the premier league
‘Little has changed at small clubs’
NOS analyst Leonne Stentler played football for ADO Den Haag and Ajax between 2007 and 2015. “At ADO I only received a travel allowance. Nowadays the players at Ajax, Twente, PSV and Feyenoord have a collective labor agreement, but little has changed at the smaller clubs in all these years.”
According to her, this depends on the licensing requirements. “The clubs must now have at least four players under contract. This does not even have to be full-time, in practice it is sometimes contracts for 16 hours a week.”
Tonight the Telstar-Fortuna Sittard match is in front of a few hundred spectators and a few thousand TV viewers. How should the players be paid if interest is so low? “It’s a chicken-and-egg situation,” says Stentler. “The competitions are more visible than before, which will ultimately lead to more interest and more income.”
Yet the question remains whether a small club like Telstar can ever finance professional women’s football. Stentler: “In the Netherlands, the organization of women’s football was very messy. We were going to start a competition together with Belgium, but then we didn’t. There was going to be a cooperative that would lead the competition, but that didn’t happen either.”
“In England, strict licensing requirements were drawn up about eight years ago that all clubs must meet. The result is that only really strong clubs now play in the Super League. Football there has grown rapidly, a club like Arsenal is attracting regularly tens of thousands of spectators.”
Such numbers are unthinkable for clubs like Telstar and Fortuna. “Telstar, which is also close to Ajax and AZ, would not even receive a license under the current requirements,” says Stentler. “Because those requirements did not exist in the past, we now have a number of clubs in the Premier League that cannot easily afford full professionals.”
2024-03-22 17:00:01
#millions #minimum #wage
