FIFA boss Gianni Infantino advocates 'full equality' in football beyond Women's World Cup

FIFA President Gianni Infantino emphasizes the need for true gender equality beyond symbolic equal pay, as stakeholders are urged to address development targets in women's football.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino believes that achieving equal pay for the Men's and Women's World Cups would merely serve as a "symbolic" gesture and not address the larger issues if additional advancements in the women's game are not accomplished. He challenged stakeholders to work towards true equality in the sport, stating that focusing solely on equal pay for the World Cup would not be enough.

The upcoming final between England and Spain in the women's tournament offers a prize pool of $110 million, a substantial increase from the 2019 Women's World Cup in France. However, this amount remains significantly lower than the $440 million awarded in the 2022 men's competition in Qatar.

Infantino had previously expressed his goal of achieving prize parity by the 2026 and 2027 World Cups. However, with the conclusion of the current women's tournament approaching, he urged stakeholders to do more to promote gender equality in football.

“Let’s really go for a full equality. Not just equal pay in the World Cup, which is a slogan that comes up every now and then. Equal pay in the World Cup, we are going in that direction already," the FIFA boss said.

“But that would not solve anything. It might be a symbol but it would not solve anything, because it’s one month every four years and it’s a few players out of the thousands and thousands of players. We need to keep the momentum. We need to push it. We need to go for equality but we have to do it for real," he added.

Infantino threatened to "force not to broadcast" the World Cup in Europe's "big five" nations two months prior to the event due to what he perceived to be "very disappointing and simply not acceptable" proposals from broadcasters, although negotiations were ultimately reached.

The Matildas' semi-final match against England broke all previous viewing records in Australia, where a peak of 11.5 million viewers, or 46% of the country's population, tuned in. This was the nation's most-watched television programme overall since the rating system was established in 2001.

The 7.3 million viewers of the same match on BBC One at home made up the largest UK World Cup audience to date, and on Friday Infantino reaffirmed his belief that broadcasters should be included in the prize parity goal.

The competition will feature 32 teams in 2023, and it will also feature multiple nations as hosts for the first time.

Infantino said, “Some voices were raised, where it cost too much, we don’t make enough revenues, we will have to subsidise. And our opinion was, well if we have to subsidise, we will subsidise, because we have to do that."

“But actually, this World Cup generated over 570 million US dollars in revenues, and so we broke even. We didn’t lose any money and we generated the second highest income of any sport, besides of course the men’s World Cup, at a global stage. More than half a billion (in revenues)," he added.

The idea to include more teams was initially met with criticism because some believed it would merely serve to accentuate the discrepancy between top-ranked nations and teams with less resources.

The 2011 winners, Japan, were ousted at the quarterfinal stage, one round after double-defending champions, the United States, were eliminated in the last-16, making this one of the most competitive finals in history and guaranteeing a new champion.

World number four England scored just one goal against tournament rookies Haiti, who are ranked 49 places lower than them in FIFA's world rankings, while other rookies Morocco and Jamaica, who were eliminated in the group stage of their only prior participation in a final, proceeded to the round of 16.

Germany, Canada, and Brazil, three top-10 teams, were eliminated in the group stage, but Colombia, England's quarterfinal opponent, made it all the way to the last eight for the first time.

Furthermore, FIFA's most recent benchmarking study found that the average league and club earnings for women worldwide were only 14,000 dollars (£11,000), despite the possibility that some players' standout performances at this World Cup could lead to more lucrative contracts in regions like Europe and the United States.

Infantino demanded, “Football in general, in all the leagues and all the competitions, pay a fair price. Show that you respect women and women’s sport. You will see the feedback that will be absolutely fantastic. We need to have more local competitions, more continental competitions, more international competitions because when you see some of the beautiful, stories that were written at this World Cup."

“We need to create the conditions in the next four years for them to able to play at professional level at home. This is the biggest challenge we have to take onboard," the FIFA boss added.