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1 million tickets sold for Women’s World Cup It will roll out from July 20, and it’s rolling out across Australia and New Zealand for exactly one month.
It is the most expensive payment in the fledgling tournament – FIFA has allocated $435 million to organize the tournament. The total prize money is an all-time high – $150 million, five times the amount received by two-time defending champions USA in the previous edition – although it is only a third of the reward received by Lionel Messi and his men’s World Cup mates. FIFA believes it could be the largest independent women’s sporting event ever.
It’s a moment of triumph – even though abuse, misogyny and inequality grip sport around the world, even though it is still at the initial stage in its development cycle, even though there is still an underlying assumption that this is a symbolic event, FIFA has made it out of fear. Than call it reactionary in a progressive society (the best example being the governing body distributing broadcasting rights as a reward of sorts to the winners of the Men’s World Cup).
🇺🇸 ReNgo_Sport 13Mission: to win third place #FIFAWWC! 🫡@tweet | #beyond_greatness
– FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFAWWC) July 15, 2023
It still lives in the shadow of the world’s most powerful and popular sporting empire – men’s football – but at least it need not be played secretly, out of the public eye, in the dark, as it has been for most of the last century.
Women’s football, its non-conforming version, has been around as early as the 17th century. The first recorded women’s match occurred in 1881, when Scotland and England faced off, dressed in corsets, high-heeled shoes and bonnets, so as to conform to Victorian standards or morals.
The rise paralleled feminism and the suffragette movement in Europe and Great Britain. The disdain was reflected in an article in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine titled Modern Mannish Maidens: “We heard one day in a certain locality that boyish hockey and conspicuous manhood were being played illicitly by ladies and gentlemen, we confess we were rather aghast!” Until we are surprised if, as the rumors tell us, there is a thought to start a women’s football club.”
Nevertheless, they thrived and drew spectators to the ground, but Britain suspended them from 1915 to 1919 under the pretext of war, although the real reason football historians believe is that they feared that the money raised from packed stadiums would be funded by the Communists. and suffragette. Before it was banned for 50 years from 1921 to 1971, as the Football Association deemed “the game of football wholly inappropriate for females and should not be encouraged”.
2017 European Championship Champion.
2019 World Cup Final.
2022 European Champion.
World Cup 2023 _______?Sarina Wegman will be driving @tweet to #FIFAWWC Glory? 🤔
– FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFAWWC) July 15, 2023
So did France in 1932, West Germany in 1955, Norway in 1931 and Brazil in 1941. Even more infuriating was the rationale for the DFB’s defense: “This aggressive sport is fundamentally alien to the nature of women in the fight for ball, feminine grace vanishes, and body and soul will inevitably suffer mischief… Displaying a woman’s body offends decency and modesty.”
Italy is an exception
Italy was an exception and in 1970 the Independent European Women’s Football Association (FIEFF) based in Turin unofficially organized the Women’s World Cup. It was the first tournament of what was called the Mundialitos, or Mini World Cup, an invitational tournament in which a few countries would compete for the trophy.
This would continue until the mid-1980s, even when football associations began to gradually lift the ban, although they were not seized upon by a drive to raise the standard of the sport. A law passed in the United States in 1972 that would go a long way to popularizing sports in the United States, known as Title IX, insisted: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied advantages or be discriminated against.” under any educational program or activity that receives federal financial assistance.”
Sam Kerr score a hat-trick!
One last rehearsal for Matilda, and then the party begins 🥳#beautiful moments with @tweet pic.twitter.com/dRa1O3Gu0q
– FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFAWWC) July 14, 2023
Most importantly, it guaranteed equal rights to federal financial aid. This is perhaps the main reason why the USA is the most successful nation in women’s soccer, having won the championship four times and in pursuit of a treble this time around.
FIFA experience
Finally, in 1988, FIFA prepared the concept of the Women’s World Cup. As an experiment, they established a women’s invitational in China in 1988. It turned out to be successful, thousands attended, and three years later, 61 years after the opening of the men’s World Cup, the first women’s World Cup tournament was held in China. But with fear.
Call it the FIFA Women’s World Championship for the M&M Cup – the governing body cleverly avoids the prefix FIFA, lest it be a failure. Conversely, it was not a massive success as 75,000 turned out for the final when the United States beat Norway in the final in front of a crowd of 65,000 at Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou. “Women’s football is now well established,” wrote then-president Joao Havelange.
Hege Riise: The Legend of Norway 🇳🇴
– log in #FIFAWWC final ✅
– Winning the Women’s World Cup ✅
– Managing the national team ✅@tweet | #beyond_greatness– FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFAWWC) July 13, 2023
However, the environment was rude. There was no prize money (they didn’t have them until 2007), players were entitled to a $15 per day allowance, and surplus jerseys were from the men’s team and were oddly oversized.
Players from different countries were piled into a plane – for example, the US team made stops in Oslo and Stockholm so they could catch the Swedish and Norwegian teams as well. Some of them traveled on trains and boats.
Half a dozen guys shared a dormitory in a bed and breakfast. The teams shared the kitchen, bonded over dinner and threw impromptu parties. Even the officials did not wear FIFA badges or stickers. But what hurt them the most was the duration of the matches, 80 minutes instead of 90. The captain of the US national team, April Heinrichs, commented sarcastically: “The organizers are afraid that our ovaries will fall out if we play 90 minutes.” Duly, from the next version, they started playing the full 90 minutes.
Most iconic moment
But the most famous moment came in 1999 when American Brandi Chastain took the final kick in the penalty shootout against China to win the World Cup. She celebrated by removing her shirt to reveal a black sports bra, with 90,000 singles watching at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It was arguably among the most iconic images ever made of mathematics. A metaphorical moment of liberation for women’s football.
Camaraderie on and off the field. 👊
Denmark trip to #FIFAWWC. 🇩🇰
– FIFA Women’s World Cup (FIFAWWC) July 13, 2023
Years passed, and stars like Marta, dubbed Pele in skirts, exploded, money poured in and women’s football began to emerge from the men’s shadow, albeit without its glamor or fanfare. Games are less physical, but smoother and without many interruptions. Fewer cards are waved, which is a sign of discipline and spirit of the game.
Subsequently, the financial investment and professionalization of the game in 2018 following the transformation of the Women’s Super League and increased media interest contributed to its steady growth.
However, it is far from a full-fledged entity. There is a pay disparity between men and women – English players have threatened to boycott the tournament, fearing there will be some semblance of equal pay. There is a dearth of opportunity and exposure.
Of the 32 teams, only half of the teams have professional players among them. Some countries like Canada have suspended the professional league.
Some countries have only played friendlies in the past four years. Zambia has played as many as 23 consecutive friendly matches. In South America, Brazil have participated in 18 friendly matches in a row, while Colombia and Argentina have recorded 16 friendlies each.
But the most worrisome cause is the prevalent allegations of harassment, often sexual, around the world in recent times. Cases have been reported in Haiti, Venezuela, Zambia, Argentina and Colombia in just the past two years. Last year, an investigation into sexual assault and misconduct in women’s soccer in the United States issued a damning verdict.
“Our investigation revealed an association in which abuse and misconduct – verbal, emotional abuse and sexual misconduct – became systemic, involving multiple teams, coaches and victims,” the report reads.
The interests of female soccer players are many, but every example of success on the world stage is a triumph, a beacon of hope towards an equal world that shines from afar, and another step to burning narratives and entrenched patriarchal views.
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