Lets get all chauvinistic.....oink, oink!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29744400

The prize money in the world of sport is under the microscope.

Should women earn the same? Probably not.

Should the gap be so large, surely not? But maybe it should. After all, it is the men's games that draw the big crowds.

Then again surely the Superstars don't need ALL the money they earn. Not like there's anywhere else to go if a rule is brought in to cap wages?

Here's the article, worth clicking the link though to see the table of comparisons -



"Men get more prize money than women in 30% of sports"

By Anna Thompson & Aimee Lewis


Sports need to engage "in the battle for gender balance and fairness", says Minister for Sport Helen Grant after a BBC Sport study into prize money found 30% of sports reward men more highly than women.
The biggest disparities in prize money were found in football, cricket, golf, darts, snooker and squash.

"There is a gap, it needs to be closed but it's not going to happen overnight. We do know that women's sport is very exciting, we know it can draw really big audiences but we need more media coverage and more commercial investment," Grant told BBC Sport.

"It's not just about the bottom line and profits and the return on investment which I believe they will get, it's also taking part in the battle for gender balance and fairness in the 21st century."

A total of 56 global sports were looked at in the extensive study. Out of 35 sports that pay prize money, 25 pay equally and 10 do not. Fourteen sports, including rugby union and hockey, do not pay any prize money at all. Five sports did not provide information for the investigation.

Athletics, bowls, skating, marathons, shooting, tennis and volleyball have all paid equal prize money since before 2004.

In the past decade, nine more sports have starting doing so with five - diving, sailing, taekwondo, windsurfing and some cycling events - achieving equality in the past couple of years.

Grant was encouraged by the number of sports which do pay equal prize money adding: "In 70% of sports there is parity and that's great and that's what we want. But we also want the others moving in that direction too and I feel it will happen when the full potential of women's sport is seen and realised."

"Female footballers are rewarded significantly less than their male counterparts"

For winning this year's World Cup in Brazil, Germany received more than £21m more than Japan's women did after they were crowned world champions in 2011.

This season's men's FA Cup winners, a competition watched in more than 120 countries, will secure £1.8m in prize money while the team who lift the Women's Cup will net £5,000 - the same amount as the winning semi-finalists of non-league competition the FA Vase.

The Football Association has said men's and women's football are incomparable, describing them as "polar opposites" in global reach.

Kelly Simmons, the FA's director of the national game and women's football, said: "The men's game is a huge multi-million pound industry so when you compare it to the women's game, which until three or four years ago was played by amateurs, the gulf is enormous.

"We are investing £12m in women's football this year but we want to direct that investment where we think it will have the biggest impact and at the moment we do not think that is in prize funds.