50 days before the Women’s World Cup, an open war for money is raging: blackout and fiasco imminent? | Women’s World Cup

“This is a slap in the face to all players and women, simply unacceptable.”

It is the beginning of May when Gianni Infantino goes crazy (again) in Geneva. Just like at his memorable press conference for the World Cup in Qatar, the FIFA president does not shy away from threatening words.

Back then, Western media and critics in particular had to pay the price, now Infantino focuses specifically on a few TV channels.

Here’s the thing: 50 days before the start of the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, there is still no agreement on the broadcasting rights in five European countries.

Germany, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom – not the least.

But why?

As with many quarrels in life, money is at the root of the dispute.

Due to the increasing popularity of women’s football, FIFA has an interesting product with the World Cup – the 2019 edition was watched by more than 1 billion people. And FIFA would also like to earn something from that.

So far that has not been the case: the rights holders of the men’s World Cup paid for the women’s edition as part of a total package – which also includes other FIFA events. The World Football Association recently stepped away from that.

Interested parties now had to make a separate bid for the 2023 World Cup.

Only FIFA, which saw its organizational costs increase tenfold in 8 years, felt is offended by the amounts quoted in the closed envelopes of some top European countries.

According to Infantino, these varied between 1 and 10 million euros, while for the men’s World Cup in Qatar it was 100 to 200 million euros.

“Disappointing and simply unacceptable,” the FIFA president sneered. “It is our moral and legal obligation not to underestimate the Women’s World Cup. Then we simply do not broadcast in those countries.”

For the growth of the sport would be a blackout mean nothing less than a fiasco.

However, the counterarguments of interested broadcasters do make sense. Due to the time difference with Australia and New Zealand, many matches will take place at night or very early in the morning on our continent.

So not commercially interesting.

However, Infantino laughed that reason away: “9 or 10 hours are still reasonable times,” he says.

Moreover, FIFA was very late in coming up with the rights for the World Cup, which meant that many major broadcasters had already cut their budgets.

The fact that Infantino targets the BBC, among others, goes down the wrong way with many. The British public broadcaster has been a champion of women’s football for many years, while FIFA opportunistically profiles itself as a champion when it can earn something from it.

There is no way out of the impasse yet. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking faster and faster…

Today, the five sports ministers of the countries involved issued a joint statement. “TV broadcasts have a major impact on the development of women’s sport. We hope that all stakeholders will soon find an agreement.”

Words that will probably change little about the situation.

The run-up to the Women’s World Cup is becoming one of those riots.

There was also collective outrage about an alleged sponsorship deal between the tourism board of Saudi Arabia – a country where they don’t take women’s rights very seriously – and FIFA for the World Cup.

The football associations of organizers Australia and New Zealand resisted, figurehead Alex Morgan also showed her displeasure: “From a moral point of view, it really makes no sense.”

The deal ultimately fell through.

In addition, qualified countries are fighting with clubs about the exact date on which they should ask players. In Canada, Spain and France, there were disputes with their own federations for financial and sporting reasons.