Millie Bright, the captain of the England Women’s football team, has announced that the squad has reached an agreement with the Football Association (FA) regarding pay and bonuses, thereby resolving a longstanding dispute.
The issue had overshadowed the team’s preparations for the World Cup earlier this year, but has now been resolved ahead of the upcoming Nations League fixtures, which begin with a match against Scotland at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland on Friday.
Discussions between the team and the FA were paused during the World Cup, but the players remained frustrated after losing to Spain in the final and argued that they deserved to be rewarded for their achievements from FA funds, rather than just the FIFA bonus payments that had been agreed beforehand.
Bright, who is currently standing in as captain for the injured Leah Williamson, spoke before the Scotland match and expressed optimism about the agreement:
“We’ve come to an agreement. We’ve had a really good conversation with the FA and expressed that we want to be world leaders both on and off the pitch. That conversation was needed and the conversations will be ongoing between the leadership team and the FA. We’re really positive that, moving forward, things will be different. Overall it was very good.” She added that the agreement covered more than just pay and bonuses and that the team wanted to maintain good relations with the FA and be “more solution-based”.
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The discussions had been taking place over the past week and focused on pay from the World Cup and commercial activities over the past year.
Conversations will continue to establish a more formal structure for how players are paid for on- and off-field work in the future.
The England players each earned $195,000 (around £159,000) for reaching the World Cup final, all of which came from FIFA’s prize pot.
England boss Sarina Wiegman expressed her happiness at the resolution, stating that it was not unexpected and that the conversations had been going well.
The agreement comes shortly after Scotland Women resolved their own dispute with the Scottish FA regarding equal pay and treatment.
Bright acknowledged the importance of working together to grow the game:
“Although we’re opponents and enemies on game day, we all work together. The changes we make in our environment could be beneficial to somebody else. It’s always about growing the game. We have to keep evolving and moving with where the game’s at. It’s a really proud and positive movement.”
