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Fifa president Gianni Infantino says women who \u201cpick the right fights\u201d can \u201cconvince us men what we have to do\u201d to bring progress in women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n
The month-long Women\u2019s World Cup concludes on Sunday when England face Spain in the final at Stadium Australia in Sydney (11:00 BST kick-off).<\/p>\n
Speaking in Sydney, Infantino said women must \u201cpush the door\u201d to equality.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWith men, with Fifa, you will find open doors. Just push the doors,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
With two matches still to play, including Saturday\u2019s third-place play-off between Sweden and Australia (09:00 BST), the Women\u2019s World Cup has been watched by a tournament record 1.85m fans inside stadiums.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis World Cup generated over $570m (\u00a3447m) in revenues, and so we broke even,\u201d said Infantino.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t lose any money and we generated the second highest income of any sport, besides of course the men\u2019s World Cup, at a global stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
There remains a huge discrepancy in prize money between the men\u2019s and women\u2019s tournaments, with the record $110m (\u00a386.1m) for this World Cup some way short of the $440m (\u00a3346m) on offer to teams at last year\u2019s men\u2019s finals in Qatar, where 3.4m fans were in attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cEqual pay in the World Cup? We are going in that direction already,\u201d said Infantino.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that would not solve anything. It might be a symbol but it would not solve anything, because it\u2019s one month every four years and it\u2019s a few players out of the thousands and thousands of players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to keep the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cAnd I say to all the women \u2013 and you know I have four daughters, so I have a few at home \u2013 that you have the power to change. Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the power to convince us men what we have to do and what we don\u2019t have to do. You do it. Just do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Fifa was right\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Infantino said the success of the Women\u2019s World Cup had silenced critics who questioned expanding the tournament to 32 nations.<\/p>\n Concerns were raised that increasing the number of teams from 24 would lead to more one-sided games in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n However, Nigeria, South Africa, Jamaica and Morocco \u2013 nations ranked no higher than 40th in the world \u2013 advanced past the group stage.<\/p>\n \u201cFifa was right,\u201d added Infantino.<\/p>\n \u201cWe invested one billion US dollars in developing the game all over the world and the women\u2019s game was specifically targeted,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did that in spite of Covid, which impacted us all. Women\u2019s football remained alive even in the most difficult of times. We decided to increase the number of teams at the World Cup to 32.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember when we decided to do [it] that the usual critics, which are less and less, were saying it\u2019s not going to work and the level is too different.<\/p>\n \u201c[They said] there would be 15-0 scores, and it will be bad for women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n \u201cAs it happens quite often in the last years, Fifa was right once more. We had eight debutants. We had many countries around the world who thought suddenly they had a chance to participate.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n