Broadcasters Urged to Pay a Fair Price for FIFA Women’s World Cup™️ Media Rights
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has repeated his call to broadcasters to follow FIFA’s lead and pay a fair price for media rights to the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023™️, emphasizing that the revenue will be entirely re-invested in women’s football.
Mr. Infantino was speaking alongside the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during Making Trade Score for Women! a series of panel discussions held at the WTO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Gianni Infantino said that FIFA had already set an example by increasing the prize money to be shared by the 32 teams at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 to USD 152 million, treble the amount paid in 2019 and ten times more than in 2015 before he was elected as FIFA President. However, he said that FIFA still had to sell media rights for the tournament to some major markets because the offers were undervalued, according to the “Egypt Today” website.
The offers from broadcasters, mainly in the ‘Big 5’ European countries, are still very disappointing and simply not acceptable based on four criteria,” he said. “Firstly, 100% of any rights fees paid would go straight into women’s football, in our move to promote actions towards equal conditions and pay. Secondly, public broadcasters in particular have to promote and invest in women’s sports. Thirdly, the viewing figures of the FIFA Women’s World Cup are 50-60% of the men’s FIFA World Cup (which in turn are the highest of any event), yet the broadcasters’ offers in the ‘Big 5’ European countries for the FIFA Women’s World Cup are 20 to 100 times lower than for the men’s FIFA World Cup. Finally, and concretely, whereas broadcasters pay $100-200 M for the men’s FIFA World Cup, they offer only $1-10 M for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This is a slap in the face of all the great FIFA Women’s World Cup players and indeed of all women worldwide.
