Women\u2019s football has much to gain from the kind of reforms that threats to snub upcoming tournaments might prompt. Infantino should be taken on<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I say to all the women \u2026 Pick the right battles. Pick the right fights. You have the power to change. You 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. With men, with Fifa, you will find open doors. Just push the doors. They are open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those were the condescending words of Fifa\u2019s president, Gianni Infantino, three years ago during a tone-deaf speech in Sydney, which left his audience, including some of the most senior women in the game, exasperated. It is a damning indictment of Infantino\u2019s tenure that his patronising monologue on the eve of the Women\u2019s World Cup final now barely even creeps into the top 10 of the most controversial moments since his latest re-election, in March 2023.<\/p>\n
Yet, with the Swiss administrator\u2019s future hanging finely in the balance, the power to enforce once-in-a-generation change at Fifa may well be in the hands of women\u2019s teams after all, as the threat of a boycott lingers over September\u2019s Women\u2019s Under-20 World Cup, the Women\u2019s Under-17 World Cup, which gets under way in October, and that month\u2019s senior World Cup playoff ties for next summer\u2019s major showpiece, the Women\u2019s World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n
This week Lisa Nandy told the BBC that Infantino \u201cshould go\u201d and, overall, the culture secretary spoke well on the matter, but she added that she would not support a boycott of the U20 World Cup and said she was \u201cnot generally in favour of sporting boycotts full stop \u2013 because they unfairly penalise athletes and competitors who are not responsible for the reason that these boycotts take place\u201d. On that specific element, it is important to respectfully disagree with Nandy and the many others who share that view.<\/p>\n
Yes, it would feel deeply unjust for football\u2019s political turmoil to have an adverse impact on the development of the world\u2019s best young women footballers through no fault of their own, but that is why any participating countries being prepared to boycott the upcoming under-20 tournament would send such a powerful message.<\/p>\n
It is tempting to follow the stance that many working within the women\u2019s game are taking privately, which is that it would be a travesty if women\u2019s football, having been neglected and let down by the authorities for generations, was harmed again by disruption to such a significant tournament, but the painful reality is that the young generation of women\u2019s stars stand to be most affected by the decisions that are made by governing bodies in the days, weeks and months ahead.<\/p>\n
And yes, is it unfair for women\u2019s teams, and young women\u2019s teams in particular, to shoulder the responsibility of taking a stance against the now-scrapped vision of selling off a stake in Fifa tournaments \u2013 which, we should remember, would include all Fifa\u2019s women\u2019s tournaments too \u2013 through the murky concept of the Fifa Forward Enterprise subsidiary, but it is their futures, and the organisation of the World Cups finals that will come to define their careers, which are at stake.<\/p>\n
And the future of the governance of the sport, and decisions about who runs the game, is a debate that women\u2019s football players, coaches and fans all deserve a much more vocal say in, on far more deep-rooted injustices than those that have dominated the news in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Is it fair that, for example, there are only two women \u2013 Paola L\u00f3pez of Mexico and Vietnam\u2019s Thi My Dung Nguyen \u2013 among the 18 members of Fifa\u2019s disciplinary committee, which hit the headlines amid the farcical Folarin Balogun scandal this summer? Or that all 10 of the members of Fifa\u2019s Future of Football committee are men?<\/p>\n
Is it fair that, of the 37 members of Fifa\u2019s council, the organisation\u2019s strategic and oversight body, 29 are men and only eight are women? Or that seven of the eight vice-presidents are men?<\/p>\n
Is it fair that the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup prize money totalled $110m and this summer\u2019s men\u2019s World Cup\u2019s prize pot was around eight times larger, at a record-breaking $871m?<\/p>\n
Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football<\/p>\n
It would be wrong to say that there have not been positive improvements in women\u2019s football across the world since Infantino took office in 2016. The past decade has included long overdue, albeit still very important and welcome, enhancements to provisions for players and coaches at women\u2019s tournaments, a sizeable growth in financial investment and huge uplift in prize money, albeit from a very low bar. It is also fair to say that there are many key figures in the women\u2019s game, across all continents, who support Infantino and are appreciative of the gradual improvements that are being made, while acknowledging that there is still a very long way to go.<\/p>\n
But everyone associated with women\u2019s football should be concerned that the 25-page sales pitch that was titled Fifa Forward Enterprise Member Materials contained only one token reference to women\u2019s football. It is why the England defender Lucy Bronze was right to use her voice to say she backed a boycott \u201cfor the good of the game\u201d.<\/p>\n