The job market for women footballers: towards professionalization!

Summary This issue of Connaissance de l'emploi is based on a book (Arrondel and Duhautois, 2020) and shows how women's soccer is in the process of structuring and moving towards professionalization. While men's soccer has reached a certain level of equilibrium in its functioning, in terms of its competitions, both national and international, and its clubs, the same cannot be said of women's soccer for the moment: its structures are still evolving. Some major soccer countries have only recently started to professionalize their women's leagues: in Europe, England in 2018 and soon Italy and Spain (from 2022). In these countries, the most famous men's clubs are only now discovering women's soccer. Even if France has the highest average salaries for female players, professionalization in the strict sense - managed and organized by a league - is not on the agenda because the French Football Federation (FFF), which manages women's soccer at the highest level, does not seem to want to give up its governance. In Asia, the Japanese federation has also created a professional women's soccer league in 2021 and Australia, in 2019, has taken a big step towards this structure. In South America, the professionalization of women's soccer began a few years ago, but it was in North America that it all started 20 years ago.