Ma Xiaoxu and Han Duan, Shide Women Football Team players who were suspended from training and playing games by team authorities as punishment for participating in commercial activities without permission, saw the ban lifted on September 27, after they apologized to Shide Club officials, 163.com reported.

However, the financial difficulties facing female footballers exposed in this event drew more attention than the event itself. 

As a leading female footballer on China's women's team, 18-year-old Ma played the most important role on the national team and the national youth team in winning the Asian Cup and the World Junior Championships.

File photo of Ma Xiaoxu.

Ma, Han and another female footballer were image ambassadors at the ceremony announcing Sony's sponsorship of the Women's Football World Cup, despite the Shide Club management changing its mind just before the ceremony and trying to call them back from the venue.

As Han and Ma were at the centre of the event and the ceremony might have been cancelled had they not attended, they stayed until the end of the event, which enraged club officials and earned them penalties. 

Wang Qi, Ma and Han's manager, told journalists that the reason why the Shide club changed its stance and forbid the players from participating in the ceremony was that the club expected to receive 50 percent of the 500,000 yuan each player would get for participating in the ceremony, the maximum the club can take from footballers' commercial earnings, according to the club contract.

However, Ma and Han, who are paid only about 1,000 yuan per month by the Shide Football Club, believed 50 percent was too high.

Although the incident seemed to be coming to an end when the club lifted the ban, the low income of Chinese female footballers exposed in this event has startled the public.

Ma told media before the sanction that her monthly salary as a leading football player in the country was only 1,500 yuan.

Footballers are among the high-income social class from the public's perspective, as male soccer stars are paid millions of yuan by their teams every year. The most ordinary male players in football clubs make hundreds of thousands of yuan annually, even though male footballers have been under constant criticism for their performances in international games, match-fixing and gambling since going professional 12 years ago.

By contrast, the women's national football team has won titles in world games, and some players such as Sun Wen and Gao Hong have gained international fame with their sophisticated techniques and professionalism.

Sun was crowned Ms. Soccer World in 2000, and she was paid only about 1,000 yuan monthly on the Chinese national team before joining the Women's United Soccer Association in the US.

Prize money for the women footballers who took home the silver medal in the 1996 Olympics and the second place in the 1999 World Cup was much less than what was awarded to male players who won in domestic league matches.

Chinese women football players have long been called 'iron roses' for their tough spirit in struggling for victory on the green pitch. The girls played hard and requested barely any money.

But now Ma Xiaoxu's situation serves as a reminder to football authorities the urgent need to renovate women footballers' salaries. Without the money they deserve, even 'iron roses' will wither.