Euro 2024 prize money: How much do the winners get?

By Weston Blasi

Each team gets about $10 million for taking part in the European Championships - but none of that goes directly to the players

The 2024 UEFA European Championship is under way, as top national soccer teams meet in Germany for the highly anticipated competition.

Each team is made up of players representing their countries. Like the World Cup, this tournament takes place every four years, but it only includes European teams.

The tournament, which features 24 teams from Europe and is often referred to as the Euros, is one of the world's premier soccer tournaments and features huge prizes. The total amount of prize money on the table at Euro 2024 is $357 million, the same amount as at Euro 2020.

Every team that plays in the tournament receives $9.96 million. Here's a breakdown of the additional prize money:

   Tournament progress             Prize money in USD (approx.) 
   Match bonus: Win                $1.07 million 
   Match bonus: Draw               $0.53 million 
   Qualification to Round of 16    $1.62 million 
   Qualification to quarterfinals  $2.69 million 
   Qualification to semifinals     $4.3 million 
   Runner-up                       $5.4 million 
   Winner                          $8.6 million 

The maximum amount of money a team could win is $30.43 million, according to UEFA. Each round's prize is added to any previous winnings, so a team would earn that maximum prize if they won all three of their group games and subsequently won the final.

The total prize fund at the Women's Euro 2022 was approximately $16.7 million - double the amount it was at Euro 2017 but still less than 5% of the total prize fund for the men's tournament.

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Who gets the money?

Players do not earn a salary for playing on their national team. Instead, they get bonuses or per diem payments based on team performance.

Prize money from major international tournaments like the Euros also does not go directly to players, but rather to a country's soccer federation or organization. That federation then distributes money to athletes ??based on the contracts the players signed prior to the tournament.

Different national teams and their soccer federations have separate agreements with their players for their wages, so a player on the Belgium squad, for example, might not get the same amount of winnings as a player on the France squad, even if the teams won the same number of games.

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Footballers do not typically earn as much money for international duty as they do for their club teams. Some of the biggest players in the world, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Lionel Messi, have contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars per season with club teams.

Many soccer federations also pay their players flat fees for being on the squad for a tournament game. Players, especially those who have earned large amounts of money in their club careers, often donate those checks to philanthropic causes.

For example, when French superstar Kylian Mbappé was 19 years old, he made roughly $22,300 per game at the 2018 World Cup, plus a reported $350,000 bonus for winning the final, and he donated the money to Premiers de Cordees, an association that organizes sporting events for children with disabilities.

England's soccer federation reportedly pays some players on the squad more than $2,500 per game, and many of them also donate that money to charity.

But not all players are as eager to donate their earnings.

Micah Richards, a former Manchester City player who is now a football commentator for Paramount (PARA), spoke about his situation back when he played with the England squad. On a recent episode of the podcast "The Rest Is Football," Richards recalled John Terry, one of his England team captains, telling his teammates in 2006 that they would be donating their wages.

"I'm thinking to myself, 'He's on GBP100,000 a week. I'm on GBP5,000," Richards, who was 18 at the time, said on the podcast.

"You can give your f-ing bonus away. I want to keep mine! I just remember you had to sign a waiver and everything. I never forgave him after that," Richards said.

Some notable games at this year's Euros so far include Germany making easy work of Scotland, winning 5-1; Romania's shocking 3-0 victory over Ukraine, which gave the country its first Euro win in 24 years; and defending champion Italy beating Albania 2-1.

The tournament continues for the next five weeks and concludes with the championship match on July 14 in Berlin.

Read on: Nike has a $28 million decision to make with its Caitlin Clark shoe: Design it for women or make it unisex?

-Weston Blasi

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06-18-24 1344ET

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