On 12 August 2026, with the Black Queens still in Morocco after a WAFCON quarter-final defeat by Malawi, Ghana's Ministry of Sports and Recreation issued a statement signed by its head of communications, Bagbara Tanko. “For the avoidance of doubt, Government does not owe the Black Queens any outstanding per diem,” it read. The players replied with an unsigned statement asking for “transparency, accountability, fairness and respect”. Then they went out in Casablanca and beat Côte d'Ivoire 2-1.
That row explains most of the Black Queens players' salary question.
| Item | Published figure |
|---|---|
| Individual player salaries | None published by a reliable source |
| Women's Premier League minimum (net, monthly) | GH¢700 (about $60) |
| Northern Super League minimum (Badu, Owusu Ansah) | CAD 50,000 a year |
| Ministry bonus, WAFCON 2024 quarter-final | $2,000 per player |
| CAF prize, WAFCON 2024 third place | $350,000 |
| betPawa bonus per WAFCON 2026 win | GH¢20,000 for the team (about $1,712) |
| Coach Kim Lars Björkegren's salary | Not disclosed |
Cedi conversions use the Bank of Ghana interbank selling rate of GH¢11.68 to the dollar on 15 October 2026.
Who earns the most: an honest ranking
Search online and you will find tidy salary tables for this team. Ignore them. We checked the 27-player squad Björkegren named on 6 July 2026, led by captain Portia Boakye of TP Mazembe, against club announcements, league documents and the Ghanaian press, and not one individual contract figure is on the record.
So we rank by context. Not by pay slip.
At the top are Evelyn Badu of Montreal Roses and Linda Owusu Ansah of AFC Toronto, the two members of that squad in Canada's Northern Super League, where every contract is guaranteed and no player can be paid less than CAD 50,000 a year. Montreal Roses put the league average at about CAD 75,000 in November 2025. Their real pay is unknown. It cannot be below that floor.
Next comes a larger group abroad. Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah, who scored against Malawi, is at Nottingham Forest; Stella Nyamekye is at FC Brann; Anasthesia Achiaa and Ernestina Abambila play for ETO Győr; Josephine Bonsu is at Carl Zeiss Jena. The money there is real but private.
The home-based players, such as goalkeeper Cynthia Konlan Fiindib of Samartex Ladies and forward Ajegipina Zakaria of Ampem Darkoa Ladies, come last on any measure we can check. Everything else is guesswork.
The Women's Premier League floor
On 3 September 2025 the Ghana Football Association announced the first minimum salaries in its history, agreed with clubs after a memorandum with the Professional Footballers Association of Ghana. The Women's Premier League figure is GH¢700 net a month. The men's Ghana Premier League got GH¢1,500.
That is roughly $60 a month.
For players already under contract, the floor only applies from the start of the 2026/27 season, so it is reaching the women who carry Ghana's league just now. Our piece on the Ghana Premier League's highest-paid player shows how far the men's game has moved beyond its own minimum.
Bonuses: what the state has actually paid
For a home-based Black Queen, one tournament can be worth more than a season of wages.
At the WAFCON 2024, played in Morocco in July 2025, the Ministry gave each player $2,000 for reaching the quarter-finals, Modern Ghana reported, and the team then beat South Africa 4-3 on penalties for bronze, a finish worth $350,000 in prize money according to GBC. By late October 2025, Daily Graphic was reporting arrears of around $9,000 per player from that campaign. The squad boycotted training. They still beat Egypt 4-0 in Accra to qualify 7-0 on aggregate.
The 2026 script was similar. Players said they got $700 for the Egypt ties. They wanted more. The Ministry said there “was no Government approval for the payment of winning bonuses for the WAFCON qualifying matches against Egypt” and that only the group win over Cape Verde had earned one, which it was processing.
A sponsor filled part of the gap. After the 2-0 win over Cape Verde, betPawa paid its GH¢20,000 team bonus, the GFA confirmed on 31 July 2026.
The coach's pay is no clearer, since the GFA appointed Björkegren, formerly of Racing Louisville and Linköpings FC, in January 2025 without disclosing salary or contract length. That has not changed.
Our view
The size of the bonuses is not the real issue.
A $2,000 quarter-final reward is close to three years of the new league minimum, and that is a serious sum for a player at Samartex or Ampem Darkoa. What hurts is that nobody can say in advance what a win is worth, so the players keep finding out after the whistle, usually through a press statement. Other African federations face the same questions, as our look at Banyana Banyana players' salary shows.
November's intercontinental playoffs are the deadline. Sign the bonus schedule before kick-off. Doris Boaduwaa scored a hat-trick against Egypt, the kind of night that fills our list of the Black Queens' top goal scorers. She should not need a ministry statement to learn what it paid.
This article was most recently revised and updated 10 seconds ago
