By 2027, the World Cup will offer equal prize money for men and women, according to Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA.
Prize money for the Women’s World Cup has increased by 300 percent for this year’s competition. The $150 million (£125 million) budget for the inaugural 32-team tournament is a significant rise from the 24-team iteration in 2019 and ten times what it was in 2015.
Infantino stated that about $60 million (£50 million) should be devoted to compensating players after being re-elected by acclimation through to 2027, although he aims to close the gap to the men’s game completely in the next four years.
This is going to be a challenging assignment given that the 32 men’s teams in the 2017 World Cup in Qatar split $440 million (£365 million), underscoring the wide disparity in remuneration that currently exists.
The defending champion United States, Canada, France, and Spain are just a few of the men’s national teams who have been fighting for equal pay and recognition with female athletes around the world.
Infantinos criticized broadcasters for contributing to the disparity in prize money.
The 52-year-old expressed his displeasure with broadcasters for making inadequate TV rights offers and claimed FIFA would not sell the tournament’s broadcast rights in Australia and New Zealand at the sums being demanded.
We are there to fight for them and beside them because women deserve much, much more, he continued.
According to Infantino, broadcasters have made offers up to 100 times less for the rights to the women’s tournament, some of which are public service channels sponsored by taxpayers.
Infantino originally brought up the subject in October in New Zealand, insisting FIFA would still refuse to sell at those prices despite the fact that women’s football games likely draw 20–50% fewer spectators than men’s matches.
Offer us 20% less, 50% less, then. Infantino made the following statement in his concluding speech to the FIFA Congress in Rwanda. “That’s why we can’t do it,” he said.
