Newly elected AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey has some ambitious plans to develop women’s football, beginning with reducing the disparity in salary with their male counterparts.
Chaubey also laid out his plans to revive some old tournaments including the Santosh Trophy to have a good supply chain for the national team.
“We want to have a minimum salary cap for women footballers so that there’s not much (salary) disparity with their male counterparts and it’s at a respectable level. We also want to make IWL better than before,” Chaubey said at a press conference here on Thursday.
“We will also try that there’s not much disparity in the honorarium that a player gets when they represent a nation. We want to ensure that their honorarium is also increased.” Chaubey did not elaborate what he meant by ‘honorarium’ of the national team players.
Currently, each of the men’s and women’s national team player gets the same amount of around USD 30 as daily allowance per international match.
“Women players do not get good money while playing for a club in the IWL. The club will always tell the players to take less amount of money, say Rs 50,000 or Rs 60,000. This amount is peanuts actually,” she had said in last November.
As for the prize money, the IWL winners got Rs 10 lakh last season, which was even less than what the fourth placed I-League side got – Rs 25 lakh. In comparison, the I-League winners got Rs 1 crore, while the I-League division 2 champions were awarded Rs 50 lakh.
