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Denmark’s men footballers refuse salary rise to secure equal pay for women

Denmark's male footballers have refused a salary increase for playing for the national side to gain their female counterparts equal basic pay, the players' union said on Friday.

Published: 21 June 2024 15:00 CEST

Denmark's men footballers refuse salary rise to secure equal pay for women

Denmark's men's team line up before the match against England on June 20th. Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Ritzau Scanpix

“The men’s team chose not to ask for a salary increase … to improve the conditions of the women’s team,” union spokesperson Magnus Hviid told AFP.

He welcomed “an extraordinary measure to help take this small step in the right direction”, but acknowledged there were “still more glass ceilings to break to ensure equal opportunities and conditions within national teams”.

Hviid said the action “obtained the same basic salary for the women’s national team and the men’s national team, as well as better insurance coverage for the women’s team”.

The agreement, signed at the end of May, provides for identical match bonuses for women and men during away matches.

However for the moment due to no bonus for home matches there remains a disparity in the overall pay between the women’s and men’s national teams.

The Danish football federation (DBU) and the union have agreed to bring forward negotiations on a new deal for the women’s national team after the summer break.

Denmark are competing in Euro 2024 and are joint second in Group C after two draws against England and Slovenia.

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'You only eat beige food': What do Danes really think about the English?

There’ll probably be a bit of tension in our house tonight when the Danish and English men’s national football teams renew their rivalries in the Euros.

Being sensitive to this, I asked my daughter this morning if she wanted to wear her red England jersey to kindergarten, where a lot of the other kids will be decked out in Denmark gear.

Demonstrating more maturity and diplomacy at the age of 4 than I seem to possess, she declined.

She does want to wear it for the match though, a decision sure to go down well with my Danish in-laws if they drop by.

Three years ago, the two countries played each other in the semi-final of the last edition of the tournament. It was probably the lowest point in English-Danish relations since the British Navy decided to aim its cannons at Copenhagen in 1807.

England won, assisted by a disputed extra-time penalty and without getting into any sporting intricacies, the Danes were not happy.

Newspapers printed articles about the injustice Denmark had suffered for weeks, even after the bitter and angry snipes about the English had died down on Danish social media.

English fans – in England, not in Denmark – did themselves no favours meanwhile with disgraceful antisocial behaviour at the stadium and on social media as England subsequently lost against Italy on penalties in the final.

The way Denmark felt about England at that point was encapsulated by broadcaster DR’s headline after the final: “Wembley goes silent as football chooses a better home”.

DR‘s headline after England lost to Italy in the final of Euro 2020.

I’m not trying to poke at an old wound but to suggest it was an anomaly: in 17 years of living in Denmark as an Englishman, I’ve never seen anything like it before or since.

In fact, the only real jibes I’ve ever suffered from Danes for being English have come from one specific Dane: my wife.

“Why is it all English people are so bad at arranging their living rooms?”, she’ll casually remark while watching an indoor scene in anything from a crime drama to a reality show set in the UK.

“Can English people only digest beige food?”, she’ll observe when I do something as innocuous as eating a cheese sandwich (on white, not rye bread).

She has zero form for sporting ‘banter’, yet during the match in 2021 when Denmark went 1-0 up in the first half, she took the below photo and sent it to my parents and siblings on WhatsApp.

The author of the article during the early stages of the Euro 2020 semi final. Photo: private

The point is that if the only anti-English sentiment I ever experience is my wife’s low-grade mocking, I take that as anecdotal evidence there actually isn’t any anti-English sentiment in Denmark at all.

Even the introduction of the word Anglophobia to the Danish dictionary a couple of years ago was not accompanied by any ill feeling between the nations.

“You mustn’t take it personally,” the senior editor with the Society for Danish Language and Literature, Henrik Lorentzen told me at the time.

“It’s not included because there’s a particular hostility towards English people, or towards American or Anglo-Saxon culture,” he said.

Even the Danish footballers themselves don’t harbour any grudges.

“I think England were a world class side when we met them (at Euro 2020), they got to the final of a major tournament,” goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel said yesterday.

Schmeichel also said he is not seeking revenge.

“I’m not the kind of person to look back three years for motivation. The biggest motivation for myself is we are playing another Euros with Denmark. The biggest motivation is imagining celebrating a win for our fans after they have travelled all that way,” he said.

Should England win the match and I send my child to kindergarten in the team kit tomorrow (I’m not actually going to do this), then the only nationality-related remark I’m likely to get will be the same one as usual.

This goes along the lines of “Wow, the British accent really sounds nice, good on you for passing it on to your children, that’s a real gift”.

That is sometimes followed by anecdotes about trips to London or holidays in Cornwall or the Scottish Highlands and how beautiful it was, and how polite people were there.

The stuff of rivalry, it really isn’t.

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