Five key steps to bridge the retirement gap for female footballers

We’re all used to hearing stories of the multi-million pound wages of superstar male footballers. Even squad players who never see any meaningful minutes can earn much more in a week than many average people earn in an entire year.

The women’s game isn’t quite as lucrative. In a recent interview with Sky¹, England international and Chelsea defender Lucy Bronze was asked whether the average female footballer earned enough to retire once their careers come to a close.

"The 1% probably can. If you're smart with your money and live a certain kind of lifestyle, then there's potential. Probably 99.9% of women's players…you have to think about life after football."

Far from being able to forget about money concerns, it’s clear that female footballers and other professional athletes need to make a concerted effort to maximise their financial future. This is particularly challenging given the unique nature of their career, meaning much of the standard advice to be found online is unlikely to be helpful.

Here, we’re taking a look at how female footballers can bridge their retirement gap, allowing them to make decisions on their future after football out of choice, not necessity.

In 2022, the average wage for a player in the Women’s Super League was £47,000 per year². That’s a reasonably comfortable figure when compared to the UK’s average annual earnings of £36,192³ but looks rather sickly against the average Premier League earnings which are estimated to be over £3 million per year⁴.

Of course, the best players can earn significantly more than that, through both playing fees and sponsorships and endorsements.

In most careers, earnings are low in the early stages while knowledge and experience are built, and they then slowly rise throughout the rest of a person’s working life. Many employees’ earnings will be at their highest level towards the latter stages of their working life.

Female footballers and other professional athletes can follow a similar path, however the time scale is far more condensed, given the career of a professional athlete is often measured in single digit years, as opposed to a typical career which spans decades.

There is also a high degree of unpredictability in their earnings. Future earning potential is heavily tied to on-field performance, which is uncertain in itself and compounded by the prospect of injuries.

For female footballers who are not in the top percentage of earners, it can be hard to know whether their career will last two years or ten. This can make financial planning a challenge. What compounds this even further is the longer than normal retirement, which may stretch to beyond 60 years.

Another added complication for female professionals is the prospect of children. In many cases, starting a family necessitates taking time out of their career, often during peak earnings years. This needs careful planning from both a lifestyle and a financial planning perspective.

Here are five key steps that can help athletes navigate this complexity.

Just like in sports, you can’t create a complex plan unless your fundamentals are sound. When it comes to finances, that means a clear understanding of your income and expenses.

This can be fairly simple for employees with a single stream of income, but professional athletes will often have many. In addition to playing wages there may be additional payments for sponsorships, appearance fees, investment income and more.

On the expenses side you need to account for agents and managers fees and other professional costs, in addition to regular living expenses.

All of these details need to be laid out in black and white. With a clear picture of what money is coming in and where it is going out, you can make informed decisions about your financial future.

As Bronze says, even top players need to manage their budget carefully, “I don't live a crazy lifestyle with crazy cars or houses. I've been smart with my money, I've paid off student loans throughout my career.”

Just because there are a wider range of potential career outcomes for a professional athlete doesn’t mean it’s not possible to plan for them.

Cashflow modelling is the process of taking your current financial position and forecasting what it might look like in the future. This requires a range of assumptions to be made on things like earnings growth, inflation and investment returns.

Creating a baseline future scenario is helpful, but where cashflow modelling really adds value for a female footballer is the ability to create multiple scenarios based on different career outcomes.

In conjunction with a financial planner at Evelyn Partners, you can assess your potential financial position if you were to, for example, see a larger than expected contract renewal, a transfer to a different league, or the impact of negative events like a serious injury and any subsequent drop in earnings or shortening of career length.

By looking at a range of different potential outcomes, you can start to build a picture of the best and worst-case scenarios, with plans in place for all of them.

The main reason it’s so important to detail your income and expenses (other than making sure there’s enough income to cover them all), is to consider how much you can afford to invest for the long term, should you choose to do so.

This is about finding the balance between living a good life now and investing for your future. For female footballers, this is even more important given the volatility that can be inherent in their career.

One thing that is certain is the power of compounding through regular saving and investing. Consistency is the most important factor, as the longer you invest for, the greater the impact of any compound growth on your assets could be over time.

Whether you invest £200 or £2,000 a month, the key is to start the habit as early as possible and maybe consider increasing your regular investment amount as your income grows.

A crucial part of the process is to ensure you’re investing in a diversified way, following a suitable advised strategy that is in line with your circumstances and attitude to risk. But remember, investing comes with risk, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you can get back less than invested.

It’s also vital that both your financial plan and investment strategy are aligned. At Evelyn Partners, one of the ways we do this is through a combined wealth management approach, giving you access to both a dedicated financial planner and investment manager, with your goals and objectives at the centre.

A major part of the financial plan for a professional athlete has to be an outline for ‘what’s next.’ Even the athletes with the best longevity will generally finish their sporting career decades before retirement age, and the earlier you start to plan for this, the smoother the transition will be.

How this looks will depend on the earnings throughout your career. For higher earning athletes who put in place a plan to help support themselves financially in the future, it may be that money is no longer an issue. In that case, the decision on what’s next can come down to things you are passionate about, without the need to consider the financial aspects.

For others who will still need to work, a balance needs to be found between finding a satisfying second career which also has sufficient earning potential to allow you to achieve your financial objectives.

Building these decisions into your financial plan gives you the flexibility you need to make it happen. Perhaps you want to go back to university and will need enough money to support yourself for those years of study. Or maybe you would like to start a business and need to get together the seed capital to launch it.

Regardless of what the plan is, it’s having one that is the key.

Lastly, no one likes to think about bad things happening, but unfortunately they can. Female footballers rely on their health to make a living. Should an injury put a hold on their career, either temporarily or permanently, this can be a major financial problem in addition to everything else.

It’s for this reason that taking out sufficient insurance cover is a vital part of any good financial plan. In addition to cover such as life insurance or critical illness cover, we often encourage taking out career ending injury insurance for our clients, too.

This provides a lump sum payout should you be unable to continue playing following an injury or accident, allowing athletes to fulfil their financial goals, even if their career is cut short. Remember that an insurance policy will end if you do not make payments and there will be no cash value unless a valid claim is made.

We specialise in working with female footballers and other professional athletes to manage their money both during and after their sporting careers. By taking a long-term view, we can help build a financial base that provides security for the future, without sacrificing quality of life in the present.

To arrange a free initial consultation, book a complimentary consultation online or call 020 7189 2400.

¹ Sky News, England footballer says 99.9% of female players couldn't retire on their salaries, 9 November 2024

² BBC, How much do women footballers get paid?, 1 August 2022

³ Office of National Statistics, Average weekly earnings in Great Britain, November 2024

⁴ The Professional Football Scouts Association Football Wages: How Much Do Footballers Get Paid?