'100,000 Times More': Alisha Lehmann Brings Huge Pay Gap With BF To Notice

The gender pay disparity in sports is a direct measure of how much we have progressed as a society to accept women in sports. While sports like tennis have made considerable progress, football still has miles to go. In the summer, Alisha Lehmann and Douglas Luiz both completed historic moves away from Aston Villa - they became the first-ever boyfriend and girlfriend football transfers.

Football Star Alisha Lehmann Brings Huge Pay Gap To Notice

Brazil international Luiz swapped in a £50 million deal. It is understood he pockets around £100,000 per week. While Lehmann’s exact salary is unknown, Juventus bought the midfielder for a reported £42,000 while her partner Luiz joined the Italian giants for some £42 million.

Since moving to Juventus, Lehmann has played two games while Luiz has been reduced to just three substitute appearances. The 26-year-old Swiss footballer boasts a following of 17 Million on Instagram, whereas Luiz has 1.5 Million on Instagram. Despite her higher brand value and better performances on the pitch, she gets paid a lot less than the men's side.

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Changing Horizons

Interest in women’s sport is at an all-time high, with this being the first time that annual global revenues for women’s sport will have surpassed US$1 billion. 

The UK’s Women’s Sport Trust found that 29% of consumers think more favourably of companies or brands that support women’s sports through their sponsorship, 12% higher than for campaigns supporting men’s sports. 

For the 2023 FIFA World Cup, under a new commercial partnership structure allowing brands to sign sponsorship deals specifically for women’s football, FIFA secured 30 partners for the tournament, a 150% increase on the 2019 edition. 

Miles To Go

When we talk about football, we think of men's football to be the "normal" version and women's side to be something different from the normal.

For example, Arsenal Women have been forced to move their high-profile Champions League game against Bayern Munich next month away from the Emirates Stadium, which can hold 60,000 fans, thirteen times greater than the women’s team’s home stadium capacity of 4,500, because of a scheduling clash with the men's team.