With less than 3 months to go before the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand kicks off, broadcasting rights for the tournament have yet to be awarded in some key European markets, including Spain. FIFA president Gianni Infantino warned that the risk of suffering a television blackout is real and criticized the broadcasters and criticized the broadcasters’ commitment: “The offers of television channels, mainly in the ‘big five’ European countries, They are still very disappointing and simply not acceptable by four criteria.”

Infantino explained that in these countries -England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain- the offers were “20 to 100 times lower than the men’s World Cup” even when they represent “50-60%” of the audience for the men’s tournament. “This is a slap in the face for all the great players at the FIFA Women’s World Cup and indeed all the women in the world,” she lamented.

The FIFA president was very harsh in his criticism and assured that he will not hesitate to leave these markets without television if his bet does not improve: “To be very clear, it is our moral and legal obligation not to underestimate the FIFA Women’s World Cup. FIFA. Therefore, if the offers continue to be unfair (towards women and women’s football), we will be forced not to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup to the ‘big 5’ European countries.” The leader also argued that FIFA will allocate all of this income to the promotion of women’s football and recalled that public broadcasting organizations have “the duty to promote women’s sport.”

Infantino first raised the subject seven months ago, when he was in Auckland for the tournament’s official draw. In March, for the annual meeting of world soccer held in Rwanda, Infantino reiterated that there had been no progress with the television stations and announced the tripling of the economic prizes compared to the last World Cup in France in 2019, 110 million dollars ( ten times more than in the 2015 World Cup).

Organized in Australia and New Zealand, this World Cup will be played in an unattractive time zone for European fans, with games that can start as early as 2 in the morning. Despite this, Infantino does not believe that this should be an excuse to lower offers in Europe: “It doesn’t make any economic sense, because the audience figures are there. Perhaps, because it is in Australia and New Zealand, it is not played in prime time in Europe; but even so, it is played at 9:00 or 10:00, so it is a quite reasonable time”. While it is true that a large number of matches will be played in this time slot -including all of Spain’s in the group stage- it is also true that there will be those who will play in the middle of the night -Spain could play at 3am in the quarterfinals-, a reason that causes the rejection of the stations. In the event that an agreement is not reached for broadcasts in Europe, the soccer governing body plans to broadcast the matches exclusively on its online platform.

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