Women's World Cup 2019: Megan Rapinoe attacks Fifa for ‘not caring’ about growing gender pay gap

The Women's World Cup prize money will double from $30m to $60m in 2023, while the men's prize pot goes from $400m to $440m

Megan Rapinoe has accused Fifa of not caring about the growing gender pay gap and questioned the “terrible” scheduling that allowed three finals to be played on the same day.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino announced that the prized money for the 2023 Women’s World Cup will double from the $30m on offer now to $60m. Meanwhile, the prize money for the men’s tournament will rise from $400m in Russia 2018 to $440m for the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

Rapinoe, who is preparing with her USA teammates to face the Netherlands in the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, said Fifa should be working to close the gap between the prize funds, not widen it.

“It certainly is not fair,” said Rapinoe. “We should double it now and then use that number to double it or quadruple it for the next time. That’s what I mean when I talk about do we feel respected?

“If you really care about each game in the same way, are you letting the gap grow? I’m not saying the prize money is $450m this time or next time around, I understand that for a lot of different reasons, the men’s game financially is far advanced than the women’s game."

The USA co-captain added that it is “unbelievable” that Sunday’s final takes place on the same day as the Copa America final and the Gold Cup final.

“It is terrible scheduling for everyone. As people who work in football, play in football, that is a terrible idea to put everything on the same day. In every way,” she said during a pre-match press conference.

“Obviously there are two other finals going on but this is the World Cup final – this is like, ‘cancel everything day’. So no, I don’t know how it happened, I read somewhere that they said they just didn’t think about it – that’s a bit of a problem.”

“The World Cup final is set so far in advance it is actually unbelievable. So no I don’t think that we feel the same level of respect, certainly that Fifa has for the men and just in general,” she added.

Megan Rapinoe has been critical of Fifa's handling of prize money (Getty)

“If you really care are you letting the gap grow, are you scheduling three finals on the same day? No, you’re not.”

A Fifa spokesperson defended the schedule and pointed towards the work that was done to ensure the finals did take place at the same time.

“The scheduling of the different events has gone through a comprehensive consultancy process that has involved all key stakeholders and taken into account different aspects of both the women’s and men’s international match calendars,” said a Fifa spokesperson.

“Fifa and the confederations have discussed the respective match schedules in general to minimise any potential timing clashes.”

The USA will defend their World Cup crown against the Netherlands on Sunday at 16:00 BST in Nice.