Because the 2024 version of the TotalEnergies Girls’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) kicks off on July 5 in Morocco, the Confederation of African Soccer (CAF) has taken a definitive step towards redefining the worth of girls’s soccer on the continent.
In a transfer each symbolic and strategic, CAF has doubled the prize cash for the event’s eventual winner, from $500,000 to a landmark $1 million, and elevated the general prize pot by 45%.
It’s a headline-making resolution, however extra importantly, it’s one that would have deep and lasting penalties, not only for the 12 groups competing this July, however for rather more development of the African Girls’s Soccer ecosystem.
For Nigeria’s Tremendous Falcons, probably the most embellished staff in WAFCON historical past, with a historic 9 (9) titles, this announcement arrives as greater than an incentive, it’s a uncommon {financial} present of religion in a staff that has so usually been requested to ship success with little in return from its federation.
What President Patrice Motsepe Stated
CAF President Patrice Motsepe wasn’t imprecise in his reasoning. He known as the prize cash enhance a part of CAF’s ongoing dedication to creating girls’s soccer in Africa and to creating it globally aggressive.
“CAF is continuous with its dedication to the event and development of Girls’s Soccer in Africa.
“The 100% enhance within the Prize Cash of the Winner of the TotalEnergies CAF WAFCON Morocco 2024 and the 45% complete enhance within the Prize Cash of this Competitors ought to contribute to the rise within the salaries of Girls Soccer gamers, coaches, and workers.
“The standard and customary of Girls’s Soccer in Africa is constantly enhancing and is world-class.
“We’re excited in regards to the substantial enhance within the variety of followers, broadcasting viewers, and sponsors within the TotalEnergies CAF WAFCON Morocco 2024. This Competitors goes to be enormously profitable.”
Full Breakdown of WAFCON 2024 Prize Cash
The prize cash for the winner is a 100% enhance, and the full prize cash of the competitors elevated by 45%.
The profitable staff will now take dwelling $1 million, double what South Africa obtained after lifting the trophy in Morocco two years in the past. The runner-up will earn $500,000, whereas third-place finishers will declare $350,000.
Under is the total breakdown of the prize distribution
- Winners – $1,000,000 (up from $500,000 in 2022)
- Runners-up – $500,000
- Third Place – $350,000
- Fourth Place – $300,000
- Quarter-finalists – $200,000 every
- Group Stage (third Place in Group) – $150,000
- Group Stage (4th Place in Group) – $125,000 every.
The full prize cash for the 2024 WAFCON has been set at $3.475 million.
What It Means for Nigeria
For the Tremendous Falcons, winners of 9 WAFCON titles, the elevated prize cash couldn’t be extra well timed. After a powerful exhibiting on the 2023 Girls’s World Cup, the place they reached the Spherical of 16 and pushed eventual finalists England to penalties, Nigeria’s gamers returned dwelling to the acquainted chaos of unpaid bonuses courting again to 2021 then, with FifPro intervening.
The nice facet of the 2023 World Cup was that FIFA instantly paid earnings to gamers to stop nationwide federations from diverting the funds.
This time round, CAF’s intervention is clearer and bolder: with a $1 million prize for the winner and vital {financial} incentives even for groups that fall wanting the ultimate, the Tremendous Falcons can now push for a event the place the rewards match the trouble.
The Mission Is Clear. Go and Get It.
For the Tremendous Falcons, WAFCON 2024 isn’t simply one other event. It’s a mission laced with which means, fuelled by cash, and heavy with the load of reminiscence. They’ve received it 9 instances, rewritten the document books, and carried the flag additional than anybody else. And nonetheless, one way or the other, this one feels totally different.
They name it Mission X—the chase for a tenth continental crown, a quantity that carries weight, legacy, and finality. And now, with $1 million on the road for whoever lifts the trophy in Morocco, there’s greater than glory at stake. There’s payback. There’s pleasure.
CAF has performed its half. The stage is about. And Nigeria’s most profitable nationwide staff has by no means wanted permission to dominate, they simply want the hearth. That is the time to show it once more.
So to the Tremendous Falcons, that is your mission. Ten titles. A million {dollars}. One continent watching.
Go and end it.
