08 January 2020

Ipswich Town manager Joe Sheehan calls for 'bigger financial rewards' in early rounds of Women's FA Cup

Ipswich Town manager Joe Sheehan has called for a 'bigger financial reward' for football clubs in the early rounds of the Women's FA Cup.

Ipswich currently sit top in the fourth tier's south-east region and have reached the fourth round for the first time. 

The winning teams from the third round each received £1,250 and at Wembley in May, the Women's Cup Final winners will receive £25,000. 

Sheehan told BBC Sport: "Without a bigger financial reward, you can't really develop staff or facilities. Our players don't earn a penny.

"We've won five games in the competition now. We've had four ties at home. That's really helped us. But if you get two away games, you could end up actually at a deficit.

"That shouldn't be the case. It makes things difficult. You'd like to see a bigger reward."

Ipswich beat Chichester City 6-0 in the second round of the Cup but Sheehan said the club had to pay nearly £1,000 to hire a coach for the day.

An FA spokesperson said: "While we recognise there is currently a significant disparity between prize money for the men's and women's competitions, these are determined by the amounts of money generated through commercial revenue.

"The prize fund for the 2018-19 SSE Women's FA Cup was the largest in the history of the competition and over £252,000 was distributed across the competing teams."

The men's Cup winners will receive £3.6 million in addition to the large sums of money they receive for qualifying in the earlier rounds. 

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