Club news
Written by: Shrey
Lewes FC calls on the Football Association’s Professional Game Board to meet and explain its unequal treatment of prize money in the FA Cup.
After all, Equality Isn’t A Cost – It’s A Commitment To Football’s Future.
On Sunday 14 December, Lewes FC and a collective of women footballers will issue a direct appeal to the Football Association’s Professional Game Board to meet and explain why efforts to fairly distribute FA Cup prize money has gone backwards.
This summer, England Women won the European Championships for a second time – an event watched by 16.2 million.
The FA opted to freeze Women’s FA Cup prize money per-round for the 2025/26 season (adding only £144,000 to cover a new preliminary round) while raising the Men’s pot from the First Round Proper by £1.5m.
Of the total nearly £30m prize fund allocated by the FA, £23.5m now goes to the Men’s FA Cup and just £6.144m to the Women’s – that’s a 79-21 split.
Why did the FA do this? Why did they worsen the inequality in prize money in our national game, harming women’s clubs and lower-league men’s clubs?
Lewes FC vs Crystal Palace – Sunday 14 December at the Dripping Pan
Lewes FC launched the Equal FA Cup campaign in 2018 to demand the Football Association invest equally in the women’s game by levelling prize money in their premier competition.
We’ve been campaigning year-on-year for equality and your voice in the stands has helped the FA double prize money since then.
However, women’s prize money is still nowhere near what the men get, and the issue runs deeper than that. It affects lower-league men’s clubs, too.
We’re hosting WSL club Crystal Palace at the Dripping Pan in the Women’s FA Cup third round on Sunday. The winner will earn £35,000 and the loser just £9,000 in prize money. In January, teams winning a Men’s FA Cup third-round tie will earn £121,500 and losers £26,500.
Remarkably, the Men’s pot has increased £1.5m from the 2024/25 season, while the Women’s pot has remained the same.
And yet, it’s not just that men and women are being rewarded differently. The FA has only increased its Men’s pot from the first round this season. Of the scores of clubs that compete in the preliminary rounds, their prize money has remained frozen.
That is despite costs for lower-league and non-league Men’s clubs rising significantly over the past year.
The Men’s FA Cup winners will receive a boost from £2m last season to £2.12m next May. We’re sure that extra £120,000 will go a long way to a likely Premier League club with a £200m+ turnover.
What’s happening on Sunday
We’re inviting fans to pack the Dripping Pan and make our voice loud and clear: why has progress to level up prize money in men’s and women’s football stopped?
Join us for a protest in the stands and lend your voice to our demand for a meeting with the Professional Game Board (PGB).
We are calling on the PGB to explain their rationale behind the backwards step on FA Cup prize money, and to meet with us to find a productive, proactive way forward.
Equality Isn’t A Cost – It’s A Commitment To Football’s Future
Get your tickets for the game on Sunday, 14th December to be at The Pan here!