TV rights key for pay parity in SA football – Jordaan

Safa president Danny Jordaan says women’s football needs to generate revenue from broadcasting if it is to achieve pay parity in the future. 

Equal gender pay in football has been a matter that has risen to prominence over the past decade, and the pay gap between men and women is wider than SA’s widest river, the Breede River.

The winners of the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2019 held in France, the US, won $4m (R57m), while Argentina last year walked away with $42m (about R756m) after winning the men’s global showpiece. The big drive for the gap, according to Jordaan, is broadcasting revenue.

“The gap between winning the men’s World Cup and women’s World Cup is huge. The reason for that, Fifa argues, is the revenue,” Jordaan said when speaking to the media yesterday on the sidelines of Sasol’s Banyana Banyana World Cup campaign taking place in Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to August 20. 

“The big difference is the money paid by the broadcasters. The Fifa president is very frustrated about this because in order to pay men and women the same prize money you must get revenue from women’s football up. In our country it’s the same,” he said.

Safa’s broadcasting deal with SABC does not bring revenue in any shape or form. They do not get money from Banyana matches and the Hollywoodbets Super League, the premier women’s league in the country. 

Last year, Banyana won the Wafcon, prompting President Cyril Ramaphosa to call for equal pay in the national senior teams. Jordaan said he would meet with the sports minister Zizi Kodwa to discuss the matter and the need to get broadcast money from the women’s game.

“There’s no revenue from broadcasters for women’s football, so we have to address this issue,” he said. “I’m meeting with the minister of sport to discuss the very issue, to say the president of the country announced there must be pay parity, where must the money come from?”  

Quizzed on if they were thinking of approaching commercial broadcaster SuperSport to secure broadcasting money when their contract with the SABC expires in September, Jordaan said: “We don’t mind where the money comes from, as long as the money is there to pay the players, as Nelson Mandela would say, I don’t care whether the cat is white or black, as long as the cat can catch the mice. We don’t care, as long as we get the money to pay the players.”