UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 prize money doubled

The UEFA Executive Committee met yesterday in Chişinău, Moldova and approved a substantial increase in the amount distributed to the participating teams, along with a new distribution model, ahead of the start of the highly anticipated UEFA Women’s European Championship final tournament in England in summer 2022.

The 16 qualified teams will share a total of €16 million, double the amount of the total prize money of €8 million distributed at UEFA Women’s Euro 2017 in the Netherlands. The financial distribution will include increased guaranteed amounts and performance-based bonuses for the group stage.

In addition, the UEFA Executive Committee approved the introduction of a club benefits programme, for the first time, making available a significant total amount of €4.5 million to reward European clubs releasing players for the UEFA Women’s Euro final tournament for their contribution to the success of the event.

The increases in financial distributions and introduction of a club benefits programme are key strategic initiatives of UEFA’s Women’s Football Strategy – TimeForAction, ensuring that more money than ever before is distributed across the women’s game.

Full details of the financial distribution scheme will be made available in the coming days.

New solidarity payments model for men’s club competitions

The UEFA Executive Committee approved an enhanced solidarity payment model for non-participating clubs, thus reaffirming UEFA’s strong financial commitment to the whole of European football and ensuring greater financial solidarity to a wider spectrum of clubs who do not participate in UEFA club competitions for the 2021-24 cycle. This will reinforce the solid foundation on which the game in Europe is built.

The key changes include:

• Increased shares for all non-top five associations and capped shares for the top five associations (NB: top five associations are England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France)

• Reduced gap between associations with and without clubs participating in the UEFA Champions League group stage

• Reduced weight of market shares and distribution made more on fair and recognisable sporting principles

The 4% solidarity for non-participating clubs (€140m based on a projected overall revenue of €3.5bn) will be supplemented by 30% of the revenue generated by the club competitions above €3.5bn up to a maximum of €35m.

As a consequence, a total of €175m is expected to be available from the competition revenue for non-participating clubs compared to €130m in the 2018-21 cycle and the share reserved for the non-top five associations will increase to €132.5m (around €50m more than with the previous scheme, representing a more than 60% increase).

Full details of the solidarity distribution model will be made available in due course.

The next meeting of the UEFA Executive Committee will take place in Montreux, Switzerland on 16 December 2021, on the day of the 2022/23 UEFA Nations League Draw in the same location.