Asian Cup Rivals Unite Against Eightfold Prize-Money Gap

Seventy-four thousand fans packed Stadium Australia for the Women’s Asian Cup final. Japan beat Australia 1-0. Then players from both teams sat down and wrote a letter together.

The joint statement, released Thursday via world players’ union Fifpro, condemned the Asian Football Confederation’s prize money for the tournament — a pool of just $1.8 million, unchanged from 2022. The men’s Asian Cup in 2023 offered $14.8 million. Every men’s team received a $200,000 appearance fee. At the women’s event, only the four semifinalists were paid anything at all.

“Despite the success of this tournament, it remains the lowest-paying continental tournament in the world and inequality between the men’s and women’s game remains,” the statement read.

The numbers are stark. Africa’s women’s championship paid $3.47 million in 2024. Concacaf’s Gold Cup offered $3.7 million. Even South America’s Copa América Femenina managed $2 million. UEFA doubled its women’s Euro pool to €41 million in 2025, with each federation guaranteed at least €1.8 million — a figure that nominally mirrors the entire Asian prize pool’s US$1.8 million.

The 2026 Women’s Asian Cup attracted a record 355,528 fans across Perth, Gold Coast, and Sydney. A Fifpro report estimated the tournament could generate up to $82.4 million in revenue. Players kept quiet during the competition. With the trophy decided, the gloves came off.

Players from seven nations had written to the AFC in late 2025 seeking better pay and a guaranteed share for players. According to ESPN, the response from AFC general secretary Datuk Seri Windsor John was a dismissal.

The statement also catalogued off-field struggles: Indian players scrambling to replace undersized kits, South Korean players in disputes with their federation, and seven Iranian players who sought asylum in Australia after being labelled “traitors” at home.

“Equality benefits players in the short term, but football in the long term,” the statement said, before urging FIFA to honor its pledge of equal prize money for the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil and vowing to “continue to fight for equality and respect for women players across our region.”

The AFC has not publicly responded. BBC Sport contacted the confederation for comment.

Sources

Matildas players join Japan criticising ‘inequality’ in prize money — ABC Australia
Australia & Japan equal prize money request ignored — BBC Sport
Japan, Australia unite to slam Women’s Asian Cup prize money — ESPN

Discussion (6)

vkrishnan

The comparison to UEFA is the most damning part. Each federation at the women's Euro is guaranteed €1.8 million — that's the entire Asian prize pool for one team versus all of them combined. The AFC has no defensible framework here. Fifpro's 2024 report on women's football governance (the one co-authored with Melissa Busfield at Deakin) laid out exactly how confederations could phase in equalized prize structures over a three-tournament cycle using a projected revenue-sharing model. The AFC appears to have simply ignored it.

18 ↑

realpolitik_rc

Worth noting the AFC's silence here is a pattern. The same confederation sat on the independent governance review recommendations from 2023 for over a year before releasing a watered-down version. Windsor John's dismissal of the players' letter — if ESPN's reporting is accurate — is consistent with how AFC leadership has handled every player welfare issue in recent memory. The pressure point that might actually work is the 2027 Women's World Cup. FIFA's equal prize money pledge isn't legally binding yet — it was a public commitment, not a regulation change. If the AFC won't move on its own, player advocacy at the FIFA level becomes the only lever.

22 ↑

DaveFromPenrith

74 thousand at the final and they can't even pay appearance fees to every team. Absolute joke from the AFC. Good on the players for speaking up together, takes guts when you know the federation will hold a grudge.

7 ↑

sarah_m_92

wait only the four semi finalists got paid ANYTHING?? so the teams that got knocked out in the group stage got literally zero?? that can't be right can it

12 ↑

jenny_adventures

I was at the semifinal in Perth and the atmosphere was genuinely incredible, fans from every country mixing together, kids everywhere. You could feel it was something special. Then you read about the Iranian players seeking asylum and the South Korean disputes and the undersized kits for India and it just reminds you how hard women athletes still have to fight for basic respect. When I was traveling through Vietnam in 2019 I met some local women's club players who were buying their own boots. Nothing changes unless the players force it.

9 ↑

footyhead_matt

$82.4 million in revenue and a $1.8 million prize pool. Do the math on that percentage. Embarrassing.

14 ↑

Sources

Discussion (6)

More Stories