The Women’s World Cup has barely had time to get going, and already organisers at FIFA have managed to drop the ball when it comes to, well, women.
FIFA announced its English language commentary team on 18 July, two days before the tournament kicked off, and out of nine commentators it contains exactly zero women.
The list of commentators is as follows: Simon Hill, Robbie Thomson, Simon Brotherton, Kevin Keatings, Mark Scott, John Roder, Paul Walker, Chris Wise, Steve Wilson. Not exactly a beacon of gender diversity, eh?
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Unsurprisingly, the announcement left fans fuming, while others could scarcely believe that FIFA had managed to mess up on such an obvious opportunity to spotlight women commentators who often struggle to get a look-in on men’s broadcasts.
Sports journalist Manasi Pathak wrote on Twitter: “So you’re telling me FIFA could not hire a single female commentator for what’s expected to be the biggest women’s sporting event?”
Sally Freedman, another sports writer, said: “Seriously… are we in 2023 or 1950? It’s the *women’s* World Cup, yet here is our allsinging, all dancing all male commentary team!”
Despite the backlash, FIFA also managed to annoy people with its response, which was to appoint a smaller team of women as “co-commentators” the next day.
They are Amy Chapman, Melissa Barbieri, Izzy Christiansen, Laura Bassett and Rehanne Skinner.
One person suggested FIFA was still discriminating against women. They said: “‘Co-commentators’ aka women, know your place behind the men, okay?”
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time FIFA has faced criticism for somehow managing to discriminate against women even at the Women’s World Cup.
It still offers a significantly smaller prize pool for the tournament versus the men’s edition, with prize money standing at only $150m. Men’s World Cup prize money was $440m last year.
England’s Lionesses will kick off their campaign against Haiti on Saturday. Also in their group is Denmark and China.
Hopefully we’ll get to hear some women’s voices on commentary by then. Is that really too much to ask?
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