The Women’s Super League record goalscorer, Vivianne Miedema, and her partner, the Scotland international Lisa Evans, have become the latest members of Common Goal by committing 1% of their salaries to supporting community organisations working with young people in situations of violence and conflict around the world.
Arsenal’s Miedema, who is also the record goalscorer for the Netherlands, and Evans, a winger on loan from the Gunners at West Ham, have joined more than 200 professional players and managers who have pledged a percentage of their salaries to supporting football-focused charities.
The couple were inspired by their Arsenal clubmate Lotte Wubben-Moy to join the movement, launched when Manchester United’s Juan Mata became the first player to make the commitment in 2017. Wubben-Moy signed up in May.
They join individuals such as the Chelsea forward Pernille Harder, the US World Cup winner Alex Morgan, the Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, Juventus’s Paulo Dybala and Casey Stoney, the former Manchester United Women manager. Forty-five per cent of the players who have backed Common Goal are women.
Miedema, a longstanding supporter of the charity War Child, said: “I’m lucky to be living my dream and I feel the responsibility to help others live theirs too. I’m excited to join Common Goal and to be able to really scale the impact I can have off the field. I urge other colleagues, male and female, from club and country, to join Common Goal. The time for action is now and it’s by working as team that we can make real change.”
Evans, who has won league titles in Scotland, Germany and England and is the 10th Scottish player to join Common Goal, said: “Both Viv and I want to be the best players we can be, but we also want to be happy and constructive human beings off the pitch. Common Goal is the perfect platform to create change through football in a collective, sustainable way.”
Common Goal’s CEO and co-founder, Jürgen Griesbeck, said: “According to last year’s Top 100 player list by the Guardian, the top two female players in the world, Pernille Harder and now Vivianne Miedema, are both members of Common Goal. In fact, 10% of the women on that list have joined the movement.
“The understanding of the need for teamwork, the motivation to use the platform that football provides, and the willingness to pledge 1% of salary from so many top female players, despite the huge inequality that exists between salaries in men’s football, is testament to their vision and commitment to take action.”
