Nearly half of female footballers considering early retirement, Fifpro report finds

Nearly half of female footballers surveyed in Fifpro’s 2026 global employment report said they were considering retiring earlier than planned, the report published on 12 October 2026 showed. The study, which interviewed 800 players, identified financial pressures and psychological stress as the primary reasons for contemplating an early exit.

Fifpro billed the 2026 global employment report, titled “Working Conditions in Women’s Football”, as the most extensive review of working conditions in the women’s game in a decade and said it found stark disparities across leagues and regions. “The women’s football industry has come a long way,” Fifpro’s director of women’s football, Alex Culvin, said. “[But] for 95% [of players], the rest of the industry, there is a hell of a long way to ⁠go.”

Among players considering leaving football earlier than planned, 59% cited their financial situation and 46% pointed to psychological stress as reasons for that choice. Mental health figures in the report showed 57% of players said they had struggled with their mental health, and half those players said they had not been provided with support by their clubs.

The report found inflation-adjusted average monthly club wages have tripled since Fifpro’s previous global study in 2017 to $2,601 (£1,966), while the median monthly wage was substantially lower at $1,669 (£1,261), a gap the report described as “uneven and fragmented” growth. Fifpro highlighted regional disparities, noting that in 10 eastern European countries analysed average salaries remain below the national minimum wage, and that in western Europe and Asia/Oceania average pay is not significantly higher than national minimum wages.

Employment conditions varied: 56% of players reported having an employment contract, 13% received a club pension and 47% said their clubs did not have sufficient staff. Average contract length increased from 12 months in 2017 to 19 months, and the proportion of players with agents rose from 14% to 41%. “There is a recurring theme of precarity and fragile conditions,” Culvin said. “Not only in terms of treatment and fair ​remuneration, but also just generally the expectations that are put on these players, professional expectations that don’t operate in professional circumstances because the conditions that are provided to them are suboptimal.”

Only eight of the 30 national women’s leagues analysed have a collective agreement with players through their unions, the report found. Fifpro also reported progress on maternity protection, saying that since Fifa introduced global minimum maternity standards in 2021 the proportion of players considering leaving football to have a family had fallen to 19%, compared with 47% in 2017.

Fifpro is calling for enforceable minimum standards covering pay, facilities, staffing and healthcare to be written into employment agreements at national level, and wants psychological support to be mandatory.