The U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams will equally share 80% of the prize money earned at the 2026 and 2027 World Cups.
FIFA announced a record $655 million prize pool for the 2026 men’s World Cup, a nearly 50% increase from 2022.
U.S. Soccer is the only federation in the world that splits FIFA prize money equally between its men’s and women’s teams.
This week, FIFA released prize money figures for the 2026 World Cup, and the record-setting $655 million pool for the men’s tournament is also significant for the U.S. women’s national team.
Why? Because they’ll get a cut of whatever prize money the U.S. men earn this summer.
The collective bargaining agreement between the U.S. Soccer Federation and the women’s national team (USWNT), signed in 2022 and effective through 2028, requires that the U.S. men’s and women’s teams pool and equally share 80% of the prize money earned by each team at the 2026 World Cup and the 2027 World Cup.
In addition to awarding guaranteed participation payments to each team that qualifies for the World Cup, FIFA distributes prize money to teams based on how far they advance in the tournament.
For example, if the U.S. men advance to the round of 16 at this summer’s World Cup, a tournament the U.S. is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, they will earn at least $15 million in prize money. After allotting 20% of that to U.S. Soccer, the national governing body, the men’s and women’s teams will each get at least $6 million.
The catch is that since this summer’s tournament expanded the field from 32 teams to 48 teams, teams must win one more game to get into the round of 16.
The announced prize money for 2026 represents a nearly 50% increase from the men’s 2022 World Cup and is nearly six times the $110 million total pot from the 2023 women’s World Cup. It could also have ramifications for the women’s 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
Will FIFA award equal prize money for the 2027 women’s World Cup?
In 2023, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said his goal was to offer equal prize money for the men’s and women’s World Cups by 2027.
FIFA has not addressed the issue since then and has not yet announced the pot for the 2027 women’s tournament.
In his comments to FIFA Congress two years ago, Infantino called on broadcasters and commercial partners to ‘do more’ to help the sport’s international governing body offer equal pay – despite the fact that 2023 was the first time the women’s World Cup was sold to broadcasters as a standalone tournament after FIFA previously offered it as a free add-on to the broadcasting rights for the men’s tournament.
‘Our ambition is to have equality in payments for the 2026 Men’s and 2027 Women’s World Cup,’ Infantino said. ‘This is the objective that we set to ourselves. FIFA is stepping up with actions, not just with words. But unfortunately this is not the case of everyone across the industry. Broadcasters and sponsors have to do more. FIFA is receiving between 10 and 100 times inferior offers for the Women’s World Cup. These same public broadcasters, who are paid by taxpayers’ money, they criticise FIFA for not guaranteeing equal pay to men and women. You pay us 100 times less, whereby your viewing figures are very similar.’
The prize money for the 2023 women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand increased 300% from the 2019 tournament, which offered a $30 million pot. Still, during the last World Cup cycle there remained a sizable gap in prize money between the men’s and women’s tournaments.
The USWNT, winners of four World Cups and five Olympic gold medals, are historically more successful than their male counterparts, who have never won the World Cup or the Olympics. But the $4 million prize the USWNT received for winning the 2019 World Cup is less than what the U.S. men earned for their round-of-16 elimination in 2022 ($13 million).
Even though FIFA prize money is unequal, U.S. Soccer is the only federation in the world to split that money equally between its men’s and women’s national teams.
The U.S. Soccer collective bargaining agreements first implemented equal FIFA prize money distribution for the 2022 and 2023 World Cups, when 90% of the total prize money won by the respective U.S. teams at those tournaments was split equally between them. Both teams reached the round of 16 and were eliminated there; the USMNT earned $13 million and the USWNT earned $1.9 million, so each team got about $6.7 million.