“We live in the year 2023”
DFB star calls for minimum wage for female footballers
2/21/2023, 3:16 p.m
The first international match in 2023 for the DFB women against Sweden is just around the corner. Women’s football is booming after the successful EM 2022 in England, and the Bundesliga is also benefiting. But not everything is as it should be. National player Lina Magull makes a claim.
National player Lina Magull has demanded higher salaries in view of the structures in German women’s football. “In my opinion, a minimum wage would be appropriate, because as a professional footballer you should be able to concentrate on your sport,” said the FC Bayern Munich midfielder in an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” before the DFB team’s friendly against Sweden (6.15 p.m./ZDF) in Duisburg.
She hopes that a Bundesliga player “receives enough money so that she doesn’t have to work on the side to make ends meet.” Because: “We live in the year 2023, so you should find ways.”
When it comes to women’s football, you have to be “active” and stay “present”. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that our boom continues and that development continues.” Not only since the successful European Championships last summer, when the German selection only lost to hosts England in the final (1: 2), was the sporting development going in the right direction, said Magull. “The pace is faster, the passes are much more fluid and there are goals that are just great to watch.”
Germany is still lagging behind
In addition, the new presentation of the Champions League is making progress in marketing. “Profound changes in training” would also make themselves felt. “Today there are more and much better trained coaches looking after the players,” said Magull.
However, Magull sees major infrastructural differences between the top clubs in the Bundesliga such as Wolfsburg, Bayern or Frankfurt and the remaining first division clubs. There are “still clubs where the conditions are not at this level,” she said. “And if we compare ourselves with the possibilities at the top international clubs, we see what we’re still missing in Germany.”
Financial efforts are being made at Paris St-Germain, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and the teams from the English Women’s Soccer League “that nobody here in Germany can match,” said Magull.