FIFA Women’s World Cup will be ‘life changing’

FIFA Women’s World Cup trophy and official tournament ball
Photo: Supplied: FIFA

“You can’t underestimate the power of a World Cup to influence decision makers.”

FIFA’s head of women’s football Sarai Bareman welcomed the spotlight being shone on some of the murkier sides the game ahead of the Women’s World Cup which kicks off in New Zealand and Australia in July.

The former Samoa representative, who grew up in New Zealand, recognised the impact this World Cup would have on the players who weren’t yet superstars. And the platform the global tournament provided in the fight to advance the women’s game.

This month FIFA announced all 736 players at the tournament would be paid a minimum of $USD 30,000 – the first time prize money was guaranteed to go directly into players’ pockets.

“The amounts although they are minimum amounts for some of those players, they will be very significant and in some cases even life changing,” Bareman said.

Eight of the 32 teams at the month-long tournament had not played at a Women’s World Cup before and that is where Bareman saw the change in FIFA’s distribution of prize money having the most impact.

She used the 53rd ranked side Haiti as an example.

“If you know what Haiti has been through as a country just in terms of the political situation there and the natural disasters, the girls that are playing in that team that qualified the impact already just to qualify that it’s had on them and their families has been amazing.

“So countries like Haiti, Vietnam they’ve never played before, and many of them are amateur and when you know the women’s football landscape, especially for those players that are operating in a predominantly amateur environment, the impact that will have is huge.

“Just because they’re in an amateur environment, it doesn’t mean that they’re not giving the same amount of time and effort that those in a professional environment are giving and finally through this initiative the financial recognition for that work will come to them which I love and I’m really excited to see concretely how that impacts the lives of some of these women that will be playing later this year.”

Former England player Ian Wright and FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer Sarai Bareman at the draw for the Australia and New Zealand 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Auckland.
Photo: AFP

Bareman was aware of the filter down effect of the football’s governing body increasing prize money by more than three times what was on offer at the last Women’s World Cup.

“When FIFA does something at the global level, quite often, that trend or initiative is adopted by the structures below FIFA.

“FIFA has drawn a line in the sand and really emphasised the importance of our players and we hope that other stakeholders will see that and follow suit.”

The women’s prize money was still a long way behind what their male counterparts would get at the world cup and Bareman was one of the people who pushed for equality.

“What we’ve done with the prize money for this year’s World Cup is really just a stepping stone to what our ultimate goal is.

“In 2027 we would like to see that the players remuneration be equalised between the Men’s World Cup and the Women’s World Cup. And there’s a lot of hard work that’s going on behind the scenes in order to make that happen. But I hope and feel that the step that we’ve made this year is a is a good signal, particularly to the players, but also the wider football family that we’re serious about that intention.”

The challenges facing women’s football around the world continued to be exposed in the lead-up to the world cup.

Canada’s women were still involved with industrial action with the national body, England’s Lionesses were caught in a club versus country battle and a former French captain was recalled after a two year absence due to a falling out with a coach.

Bareman did not see issues such as these as a distraction from the tournament – in fact she said it was “quite the opposite”.

Raising the issues was “important for our growth and the professionalisation of our sport.

“For those who have been involved in women’s football for a long time we understand that there are a lot challenges that our players and others involved in the sport have to overcome and if a World Cup can bring those challenges to the surface expose them and ultimately help us to find a way to overcome them I think that’s a healthy part of our growth as a sport and something that is really necessary.”

The 2023 Women’s World Cup to be co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia was the first time the women’s tournament had been held in the Asia Pacific region and Bareman said it was important that region leveraged that.

“The differences are vast between what we have in the Pacific for example, and what we may find in Europe or North America.

“But what it does is it shines a spotlight on other things. For example, I think, you can’t underestimate the power of a World Cup to influence decision makers

“All the presidents, the general secretaries, the club owners, the CEOs, these people that are in positions of power within our sport, they are suddenly exposed to what woman football can achieve, and the opportunities that exist within the sport and that moment is only possible when you’re at a World Cup, and they really can see the full stadiums, the passion, the full commercial value, the partners, the rights holders all behind it.

“That exposure, especially for small countries, like the Pacific where I started my football career, just to see what is possible in the women’s game can make a huge impact for some of those decision makers and ultimately for the young woman and girls that are playing back home in those countries.

“So it may be a little bit different, the impact of the World Cup, but certainly it’s big and it’s something that we can’t take for granted.”

-RNZ