(Sydney) The 2023 Women’s World Cup, “the biggest and best of all time”, has generated more than 570 million US dollars (772 million CAN), the FIFA President welcomed Friday Gianni Infantino.
The Swiss leader also called on women, on the strength of this success, to “choose the right fights […] to convince us, us men, of what we must do”.
“I tell all women — and you know I have four daughters, so I have a few at home — you have the power to change,” he told the Women’s Soccer Convention. FIFA, to lukewarm applause.
The president’s rather vague statement of intent — “With men, with FIFA, you will find open doors. Push them, they’re open,” he added – eliciting a wry reaction from Norwegian striker Ada Hegerberg who wrote on X (ex-Twitter): “Working on a little presentation to convince the men. Who’s leaving ? “.
The competition co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand “exceeded US$570 million in revenue, allowing us to break even,” Infantino explained from Sydney.
“We haven’t lost any money and this is the second most money-making sporting event, except of course the Men’s World Cup, on the world stage,” he said. -He insists.
“It shows that our strategy wasn’t too bad, but of course we still have to do a lot better. But we are on the right track, “supported the Italo-Swiss, re-elected in March for a new term running until 2027.
President Infantino defended the choice to expand the Women’s World Cup to 32 participating selections, which until then had only 24.
“They were saying, ‘it’s not going to work, the level is too different, you’ll have scores of 15-0, it will be bad for women’s soccer and its image,'” he said.
“But I’m sorry, FIFA was right. We had many countries around the world who thought they had a chance to participate. Everyone now believes there is a chance to shine on the world stage,” the world soccer boss assured.
The ninth edition of the World Cup, “the biggest and best of all time” according to Infantino, was marked by the emergence of new nations, such as Jamaica, Morocco and South Africa which reached for the first times the knockout stage.
FIFA has also tripled the allocations compared to the 2019 edition in France, bringing the “prize money” to a historic total of 152 million US (206 million CAN), ten times more than for the 2015 World Cup in Canada.
The final will pit Spain against England in Sydney on Sunday, two selections who dream of adding their names to the list.