Even more startling than this top-line figure is the revelation that her playing contract with the Gunners was just £4,000 per annum – the remaining £5,000 of her earnings was earned by coaching sessions that she took outside of training hours and some ambassadorial work.
The news comes four months after Houghton, now regarded as one of the greatest centre-halves England has ever produced, retired from playing. She has since begun to carve out a successful career as a pundit.
She told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast last week that, while she had never played the game in pursuit of riches, she now looks back at the money she was making with some dismay.
Furthermore, while she was grateful that Arsenal covered her living expenses, such paltry income didn’t make for a very comfortable lifestyle.
“To live off that and try and save for a house, simple things we all do as human beings, it was quite tough to do,” she said.
Houghton joined Arsenal in 2010 and turned out for the North London outfit 74 times, scoring 12 goals, before moving to Manchester City in January 2014. It turned out to be a pivotal window in her career as she was named England captain the same month.
Her last game for England came in 2021. She won 121 caps for her country, claiming one SheBelieves Cup (a round-robin summer tournament), three Cyprus Cups (an international round-robin and play-off tournament) and a bronze medal at the 2015 World Cup.
Her club career yielded even more success. She made 421 appearances for Sunderland, Leeds Arsenal and City, scoring 67 goals but it was in her later career she enjoyed the most club success. She won three WSL titles across her time at Arsenal and Manchester City as well as five FA Women’s Cups and seven League Cup’s.
Many will argue that the fact her wages were so low 12 years ago demonstrates how far the women’s game has come in recent years. The league’s best players are widely reported to be making hundreds of thousands of pounds each year – the likes of Fran Kirby and Vivianne Miedema’s playing contracts are reportedly 100 times bigger than Houghton’s was in 2012 with both WSL stars reputedly worth around £400,000 per season.
This, of course, pales in comparison to the top earners in the men’s game such as Kevin De Bruyne and Mohamed Salah who, in a single week, can expect to take home the equivalent of Kirby’s entire annual salary.
A far more realistic comparison to Houghton’s salary just over a decade ago is today’s average salary in the WSL, which is much improved. According to the BBC, two years ago the average WSL footballer was making around £47,000 per year, the equivalent of about £895 per week.
These figures certainly look much improved given that in 2012 Houghton was likely to have been earning a fairly typical salary in her early Arsenal days.
While the gap between the men’s and women’s will likely always be an unrealistic comparison that is hard to avoid, the latest numbers in context with Houghton’s revelations show that the financial growth of the women’s game is pronounced – and that extra wealth is filtering down to the players.
