FIFA will raise the prize money for the Women's World Cup from $15 million to $30 million starting with next year's edition in France, president Gianni Infantino announced on Friday, though critics immediately said the increase was not enough, reports Reuters.
Following a FIFA council meeting in Rwanda, the Swiss-Italian also said that $20 million would be made available for pre-tournament preparations, meaning that $50 million in total would be allocated across the 24 participating nations.
The prize money is double the amount awarded in the 2015 World Cup in Canada and for the first time clubs will be rewarded for their players taking part in the tournament, as is the case in the men's edition.
"It's a very important message for women's football. It will certainly boost this World Cup even more," Infantino told a news conference.
However, global footballers' union FIFpro said the changes were not enough to redress the inequality between men's and women's football worldwide.
"FIFPro notes the willingness of FIFA to increase prize money for the Women's World Cup and make structural improvements to support women's football. However, despite these changes football remains even further from the goal of equality for all World Cup players regardless of gender," a FIFpro statement said.
Players' unions in Australia, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand had written to world soccer's governing body to protest that even with women's prize money being doubled, the rewards in the men's game still dwarf the new amounts.
The total prize money for this year's men's World Cup in Russia was $400m, with champions France receiving $38m.
The letter from Australia's PFA argued: "For the group stage alone, Socceroos players have shared $2.4 million for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, while the Matildas will only share $0.225 million, less than 10 percent.
Infantino said that FIFA was committed to consistently increasing investment and cited the launch of a new strategy for women's football earlier this month which included plans to strengthen the game in all 211 member associations.