Professional women's association football players have organized to dispute several issues specific to the sport, such as disparities in compensation compared to men's teams; insufficient pay to compete with other women's teams; unfair or exclusionary financial terms of federation business agreements involving the team; a lack of minimum standards in facilities and treatment, especially compared to men's teams in the same federation, league, or club; reports of systemic gender-related abuse of players, including sexual abuse being ignored by league or federation officials; and a lack of benefits specific to women such as paid leave for pregnancy and maternity, and child care coverage.

Disputes have been waged between national team players and football associations, between club players and their teams and leagues, between players and managers, between referees of women's football and their governing organizations, and between players and federations or laws that prevented women from playing or professionalizing the sport.

Women's footballers have also organized their labour in support of causes outside of the sport and aligned themselves with labour unions unrelated to sport, sometimes in pursuit of broader societal goals around resolving gender pay gaps and addressing labour needs specific to women.

Themes of disputes Inadequate compensation Players, coaches, and referees for women's national teams and club leagues have raised complaints about being paid insufficiently, or at all, to cover the expenses of their national team or club play, despite the attention and revenue generated by their efforts. Women's players have also organized in the face of legal or federation-level obstacles to professionalizing women's football in nations where men's football was already professionalized. In 2023, global player union FIFPro reported that in a survey of 362 players from 69 member players' unions across all FIFA-member confederations, 29 percent of players participating in 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification or the 2022 UEFA Women's European Championship were not paid — neither wages nor to cover expenses — for playing in those international competitions, and 66 percent of players reported taking either unpaid or paid leave from another job in order to compete.

Gender pay gaps

Separate disputes also arise over perceived unfairness in compensation between men's and women's teams that participate under the same federation or at similar tournaments. These disputes — particularly the United States women's national team's equal pay dispute from 2016 to 2022 — have been viewed by commentators as microcosms of broader gender pay gap debates in sport and society, while other commentators suggest that such movements are mired in inaccurate perceptions, or are limited by differences in revenue generation between men's and women's teams or prize money awarded by FIFA.

Player agency Clubs have attempted to restrict player movement using league rules, such as the United States National Women's Soccer League, or the Argentinian case of Macarena Sánchez being prevented from signing with another team after UAI Urquiza released her. National team managers have implemented heavily controlling policies that players have claimed restricted their freedom or invaded their privacy, and denied call-ups to protesting players as punishment.

Player safety Players have also organized to advocate for their own safety. Players have sought adequate equipment and facilities for training and playing professionally and sufficient medical treatment standards for treatment and recovery. Women's players have faced verbal, physical, and sexual abuse from coaches, officials, managers, and federation leaders while simultaneously lacking the means to report or investigate reports of abuse or hold offenders accountable within the sport.

The 2023 FIFPro survey also reported that 54 percent of players did not receive any pre-competition physical exam before participating in World Cup qualifiers or the 2022 European Championship, and 30 percent did not receive an electrocardiogram. Only 30 percent reported having physical training facilities that met professional standards, 26 percent reported having no access to physical training facilities, and 20 percent additionally had no access to recovery facilities.

Gender-specific benefits Women's players have organized or sued to win support for paid leave for pregnancy and maternity, child care, and accommodations in football kits for menstruating players.

In January 2021, FIFA enacted regulations entitling players to at least 14 weeks of paid maternity leave and a right for players to be reintegrated into clubs after pregnancy with ongoing medical support.

Relations with other unions Some women's sports labour unions expanded their influence by affiliating with broader labour movements. The National Women's Soccer League Players Association of the United States' top-division National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) was a founding member of the AFL-CIO Sports Council, alongside the NFL Players Association and two other men's sports unions, and later joined by the Major League Baseball Players Association and men's Major League Soccer Players Association. NWSL players joined picketers at the 2021 Nabisco strike in Portland, Oregon.

Advocacy within mixed-gender unions In global players' association FIFPro and nations where men's and women's players share unions, organizations such as Australia's Professional Footballers' Association formed specialized committees and initiatives to address needs specific to women's players, and women's players ran for and were elected to union roles, such as English defender Casey Stoney's 2013 election as the first woman to the Professional Footballers' Association's management committee. The Norwegian Players' Association helped negotiate Norway's equal pay agreement between men's and women's teams.

In Argentina

National team

Following the Argentina women's national football team's failure to qualify for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) cut all funding for the team, effectively disbanding the team and leading to FIFA classifying it as inactive in 2016. The team was reinstated in summer 2017 for a friendly against Uruguay to prepare for the 2018 Copa América Femenina. However, after being required to travel in and out of Uruguay on the same day as the match and being paid only 150 pesos (US$8.50) for the match, the players launched a strike. In an open letter to AFA women's committee president Ricardo Pinela, the players claimed that stipends that the players were owed had not been paid, and demanded fundamental improvements to their training facilities, such as locker rooms. The team protested during the 2018 Copa América Femenina by raising their hands to their ears during team photos, to suggest that they wanted the AFA to hear their requests.

League Player-activist Macarena Sánchez led efforts to professionalize the nation's club league Primera División A, but was released by her team UAI Urquiza in January 2019 under terms that prevented her from signing with a new team. She in turn sued UAI Urquiza and the AFA, alleging discrimination where professional women's players were wrongly treated as amateurs, and her plight attracted the support of feminist movements such as Ni una menos, the international footballers' labour organization FIFPRO, and Argentinian players from the 1950s to 1990s. The AFA announced in March that it had agreed with the footballers' union Futbolistas Argentinos Agremiados to support professionalizing the women's league. Three months after her lawsuit, Sánchez was one of fifteen players who joined San Lorenzo on a professional contract, a historic first for Argentine women's football.

In Australia National team

2015 CBA dispute

In September 2015, the Australian senior national team held a two-month strike following the breakdown of negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The players, along with the Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) trade union, issued a statement saying that Football Federation Australia (FFA) "failed to recognise the significant sacrifices the Matildas players are forced to make in playing for their country" and called for a number of improvements in pay and working conditions. An agreement was reached in November 2015, including a significant raise in pay.

A new CBA agreed upon in 2019 between the PFA and FFA reduced the gap in revenue distribution between men's and women's teams; equalized both teams' travel accommodations, training facilities, and performance support staff; increased the share of FIFA prize money distributed to the women's team; and restructured or improved benefits around player pregnancy and post-pregnancy reintegration to the national team. Parental benefits included 12 months of paid leave and travel benefits for primary caretakers of an infant, one paid leave for the duration of a national team window allowed to secondary caretakers of a child, and a guaranteed option to return to national team play following medical clearance. The accommodations were expected to reduce the instances of elite players, such as Heather Garriock, retiring from international play after giving birth.

Leagues

In 2016, Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) raised concerns that the lack of minimum medical standards in the W-League caused players to experience a disproportionate number of injuries. The union requested dedicated sports physicians for each W-League club, physiotherapists at every training and match, preseason medical tests, and the right for injured players to seek a second opinion and choose their surgeon if a procedure is required.

The union push expanded to set minimum salaries, improve the league's marketing, and establish a full home-and-away structure to extend the season. In 2017, Football Federation Australia, the W-League's clubs, and PFA signed a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that raised minimum wages and professionalized more of the league by increasing roster sizes, salary caps, and medical standards. It also introduced the league's first maternity policies. In a 2019 extension to the existing CBA, W-League players saw their hourly pay rate equalized with men's A-League players, though they would still be paid less due to the W-League's season being 14 rounds to the men's 27. In 2021, the push culminated in a new CBA signed in 2021 that also equalized medical standards and set minimum workplace standards across the men's and women's A-Leagues, and increased minimum salary spending in the women's league to $17,055 per player. It also led to the establishment of a longer 18-round home-and-away schedule in the women's league in 2022.

After a January 2023 A-League Women match between Canberra United and Western United was allowed to proceed with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, five players from the match required medical treatment for heat-related conditions. Women's matches were pushed into hotter parts of the early afternoon in order to accommodate scheduling A-League Men's matches, which take broadcast priority. Player complaints led to revisions to the league's heat policies in February 2023.

In Brazil National team

2017 protest In 2017, the Brazilian Football Confederation fired head coach Emily Lima, which sparked protest among the team's players. The dispute evolved into an argument for greater wages, and more respect and recognition for the country's female football players. Players such as Cristiane, Rosana, and Francielle announced their retirement from international football in protest.

In Canada National team

2011 pay dispute