Infantino threatens to not broadcast women’s World Cup in Europe

The FIFA president is not happy with offers from European broadcasters

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has threatened to not broadcast the 2023 women’s World Cup in some European countries due to offers he called “simply not acceptable.”

With just three months to go until the tournament kicks off in Australia and New Zealand, none of the so-called “big five” European countries — Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and France — have broadcast agreements in place.

According to Infantino, that is because broadcasters in those countries have been attempting to lowball FIFA.

“The offers from broadcasters, mainly in the ‘big five’ European countries, are still very disappointing and simply not acceptable,” he said at a World Trade Organization meeting in Geneva.

Infantino said that while viewing figures for the women’s World Cup are 50-60 percent of the men’s World Cup, broadcasters’ offers from the big five European countries have been 20 to 100 times lower than for the men’s World Cup.

“To be very clear, it is our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” he added. “Therefore, should the offers continue not to be fair (towards women and women’s football), we will be forced not to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup into the ‘Big 5’ European countries. I call, therefore, on all players (women and men), fans, football officials, Presidents, Prime Ministers, politicians and journalists all over the world to join us and support this call for a fair remuneration of women’s football. Women deserve it! As simple as that!”

For the first time, FIFA is selling the broadcast rights to the women’s World Cup separately from the men’s World Cup.

That, plus suboptimal broadcast times due to the tournament’s location, have seemingly combined to force the price down.

Moya Dodd, a former Australia international and FIFA Council member, told the Sydney Morning Herald that she wasn’t surprised over FIFA’s struggles to find suitable offers — and that it wasn’t because the women’s game is less marketable.

“Now that FIFA has decided to sell the rights separately, it’s no surprise that the buyers don’t want to pay the same big numbers twice,” Dodd said.

“Effectively, the industry was trained to pay big money for the men’s World Cup and to treat the women’s equivalent as worthless. At the same time, the women were told they didn’t deserve prize money or equal pay because they didn’t bring the revenues.

“Rather than scold the broadcasters, I’d like to see FIFA help shift these misconceptions by reviewing all of its bundled deals – broadcast, sponsorship, the lot – and attributing a fair proportion to the women’s game.”[lawrence-related id=18420,18172,18169]

Fox announces broadcast schedule for 2023 women’s World Cup

A record 29 matches are set to be aired on Fox’s broadcast network

Fox Sports has announced its broadcast schedule for the 2023 women’s World Cup, with a record 29 matches set for Fox’s broadcast network.

All 64 games from Australia and New Zealand will be broadcast live, starting with the tournament opener on July 20 between New Zealand and Norway at 3 a.m. ET on Fox.

Of the 64 games, 29 will be on Fox with the other 35 set for FS1. Every game from the quarterfinal stage on will be on Fox.

In addition, all 64 games of the World Cup will be streaming live on the Fox Sports App.

The U.S. women’s national team’s three group-stage matches will air on Fox, which will all be preceded by a two-hour pregame show.

“The combination of Australia and New Zealand as spectacular venues for the two-time defending world champion United States women’s national team provides a perfect stage for the Americans’ quest to secure a place in the record books,” said David Neal, executive producer of the World Cup on Fox.

“Thanks in part to this edition of the world’s greatest sporting event featuring an expanded field, the robust broadcast schedule includes more matches on English-language broadcast television than ever before and serves as a true extension of Fox Sports’ commitment to delivering equitable and award-winning coverage around the beautiful game.”

One of the biggest challenges for viewership will be the kickoff times, which will all take place somewhere between the late night and early morning Eastern Time.

The tournament will culminate with the final at Stadium Australia in Sydney, which will air on Fox on Sunday, August 20 at 6 a.m. ET.

Fox has said its on-air talent for the tournament will be announced in the coming months.

The full broadcast schedule can be found here.

USWNT group stage schedule (all games on Fox)

July 21: USWNT vs. Vietnam — Eden Park, Auckland, NZ. 9:00 p.m.

July 26: USWNT vs. Netherlands — Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington, NZ. 9:00 p.m.

August 1: Portugal vs. USWNT — Eden Park, Auckland, NZ. 3:00 a.m.

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England captain Leah Williamson will miss World Cup with ACL tear

A huge blow for the Lionesses

England captain Leah Williamson will miss the World Cup with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, Arsenal has confirmed.

Williamson suffered the injury in a game against Manchester United on Wednesday night and two days later, the Gunners confirmed the worst fears for club and country.

The news is a huge blow for England, which is looking to follow up last summer’s Euro 2022 victory on home soil with the country’s first women’s World Cup win.

The Lionesses are already likely to be without Beth Mead, who was named player of the tournament at Euro 2022. Mead also suffered a torn ACL in November, and last month England manager Sarina Wiegman said she would miss the World Cup unless a “miracle happens.”

England will be now be forced to head to Australia and New Zealand without Williamson, the team’s defensive anchor.

Williamson’s injury is also a major setback for Arsenal, which is facing a Champions League semifinal tie with Wolfsburg as well as a close title race in the Women’s Super League.

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‘Fun grandma’ Rapinoe embracing new USWNT role

The Golden Boot and Golden Ball winner at the 2019 World Cup is looking at a new role four years later

Megan Rapinoe has said she is embracing a different role on the U.S. women’s national team as they look ahead to the 2023 World Cup.

Rapinoe was front and center four years ago as she won the Golden Boot and Golden Ball at the 2019 World Cup, leading the USWNT to a second straight title.

Though she’s still involved in the national team setup, Rapinoe has been mostly used off the bench in the past 18 months. Nine of the 12 caps she’s amassed in 2022 and 2023 have come as a substitute.

If healthy, the 37-year-old still looks likely to make the USWNT’s World Cup roster — especially after Mallory Swanson’s serious knee injury.

When asked about her approach to the 2023 World Cup on the Snacks podcast, the veteran said: “In some ways completely differently and in some ways exactly the same.

“My role on the team is completely different, which I actually really love and enjoy. I mean, I still love to play and I want to play all the time. Sometimes at 60 minutes I’m like, ‘she’s ready [to come off].'”

“But I do love my role and I think it’s position specific. Like not every position can only be playing limited minutes or having the kind of role that I do.”

USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski has spoken highly of Rapinoe’s locker room presence in the past, and the OL Reign star is embracing the chance to mentor some of the young stars at her position like Sophia Smith, Trinity Rodman and Alyssa Thompson.

“I’m still fun. I’m still a fun aunt, fun grandma,” Rapinoe said. “But yeah, we want to run it back. We want to win. We want to win everything, all the time. Win every game. World Cups are just so cool. Like this one’s going to be so much better than the last one which was so much better than the last one.

“It’s in a really cool place, so I think that’s exciting for everyone. The team is looking great. These little kids are just good. Everyone’s just good.”

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USWNT to face Wales in World Cup send-off match

The two countries have never met before in the women’s game

The U.S. women’s national team will face Wales on July 9 in its final game before the 2023 World Cup.

It will be the first game the team’s 23-player World Cup roster plays together, with its World Cup opener set for July 21 against Vietnam in Auckland, New Zealand.

The USWNT and Wales will meet at PayPal Park, home of the San Jose Earthquakes, in a game that kicks off at 4 p.m. ET  and will be broadcast on TNT in English and Universo, Peacock and Telemundo in Spanish.

The USWNT has never faced Wales, which narrowly missed out on qualifying for the World Cup when it fell to Switzerland in a playoff.

“When the 2023 World Cup roster comes together for the first time in San Jose, it will signify a lot of hard work by coaches, players and staff over the past few years to get to that point, so we’re really looking forward to having an exciting, productive camp and playing one last match to fine tune some things before we leave for New Zealand,” said U.S. head coach Vlatko Andonovski.

“For everyone involved, the opportunity to be a part of a World Cup doesn’t come along very often so we are going to make sure to appreciate and take advantage of every moment we have together.”

The USWNT defeated Ireland 1-0 on Tuesday night in its penultimate game before the World Cup.

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USWNT star Swanson set to miss World Cup with torn patella tendon

The forward was stretchered off during Saturday’s friendly against Ireland

U.S. women’s national team star Mallory Swanson has suffered a torn patella tendon in her left knee, U.S. Soccer announced on Sunday.

The injury will almost certainly rule Swanson out for the World Cup. Per the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons: “Complete recovery takes about six months. Many patients report that they required 12 months before they reached all of their goals.”

The World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is set to begin in three months.

The news is devastating and not surprising after seeing how serious the injury looked when Swanson was stretchered off the pitch in Saturday’s 2-0 friendly win over Ireland.

The Chicago Red Stars attacker was caught by a late challenge from Ireland defender Aoife Mannion and had to go straight to the hospital from Q2 Stadium in Austin.

Angel City FC rookie Alyssa Thompson has been named as Swanson’s replacement on the USWNT roster ahead of Tuesday’s second match against Ireland.

Though the USWNT has plenty of depth at its attacking positions, the loss of the in-form Swanson is a brutal blow. Swanson has scored seven goals in six national team games in 2023, and was a NWSL MVP finalist with the Red Stars in 2022.

Thompson, Trinity Rodman and Lynn Williams will be immediate candidates to step into Swanson’s starting role.

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Herve Renard, woso neophyte, takes over as France women’s manager

France is quickly moving past Corinne Diacre

France’s head coaching vacancy wasn’t open for long.

On Thursday — just three weeks after former coach Corinne Diacre was sacked amid a player revolt — the French federation announced that globetrotting coach Hervé Renard is the new manager for the women’s national team. His contract runs through August 2024, essentially through this summer’s World Cup and the 2024 Olympic games in Paris.

Renard takes the job just 116 days before France will kick off its group F schedule against Jamaica. His first matches in charge are much closer: France will host Colombia in just eight days, and have yet to announce a squad for the match. Per the French federation, Renard will announce his first roster on Friday.

That might be complicated, too, because team captain Wendie Renard (no relation) and star attackers Kadidiato Diani and Marie-Antoinette Katoto had all previously said they will reject France call-ups until some unspecified changes were made by the federation. While those changes were widely believed to be related to Diacre, her unpopular tenure was hardly the FFF’s only recent problem. It’s unknown if those crucial players are ready to come back yet or not.

Federation board member Jean-Michel Aulas said that the FFF had reached out to at least one other candidate, approaching Thierry Henry only for the legendary forward to withdraw from consideration. French reports said that the federation had also considered experienced Ligue 1 coach Jocelyn Gourvennec, Diacre’s former assistant Eric Blahic, Lyon boss Sonia Bompastor, Paris Saint-Germain manager Gérard Prêcheur, and the team’s all-time record holder for appearances Sandrine Soubeyrand (who currently manages Paris FC).

Renard’s unusual path

Renard, 54, doesn’t necessarily fit the profile for the coach of one of the world’s top women’s teams. After a playing career spent largely in the French lower divisions — save for a brief spell in the top flight at AS Cannes, alongside a then-17-year-old Zinedine Zidane — he began a meandering managerial career in 1999 with lower-level French side SC Draguignan.

From there, amid a spell working for a cleaning service, Renard bounced around: lower-league football in England, a move to Vietnam club soccer, posts with four different men’s national teams in Africa, and top-flight club positions in Algeria and France.

Renard’s longest spell anywhere is the job he just left, a four-year run as the manager of Saudi Arabia’s national team. There he led the team to qualify for the 2022 men’s World Cup and amid discussion of him as the tournament’s hunkiest coach, he notably got a win over Argentina in one of the all-time great upsets in the sport.

Renard has obviously experienced a lot, but he’s also in new territory moving over to the women’s game. France — especially in the midst of so much turmoil off the field — is a different sort of role than he’s used to working in. Outside of one short run with the Ivory Coast men’s team (where, it must be said, they won the 2015 African Cup of Nations), he’s arguably never been given a post with a team that sits among the favorites in their tournament.

Renard has the reputation of being a coach you turn to when you want to punch above your weight, which is sometimes not a transferable skill-set when it comes to running the show with a more highly-touted side. If he can bring the mentality and organization that comes with that sort of approach, and bolster les Bleues‘ confidence, France might finally be ready to fulfill their potential.

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Adidas unveils nature-inspired kits for 2023 women’s World Cup. They’re nice.

The kits are inspired by nature found in each of the countries, including the Black Forest in Germany and Mount Fuji in Japan

Adidas has released brand-new away kits for six teams taking part in the women’s World Cup this summer: Argentina, Colombia, Germany, Japan, Spain, and Sweden.

All six designs catch the eye, as the apparel giant leans into a nature theme due to the location of the showpiece event.

“With the tournament being held in Australia and New Zealand – two countries with iconic landscapes – we wanted to create a common theme throughout our kits, in celebration and appreciation of the wonders of the natural environments that can be found around the world,” Sam Handy, Adidas Football vice president of product and design, said in a press release.

Each kit is inspired by nature found in each of the countries, including the Black Forest in Germany and Mount Fuji in Japan.

The six kits will all be seen Down Under, in addition to previously released jerseys from Costa Rica, Italy and Jamaica, and one for the Philippines that has yet to be unveiled.

Below are all six new kits, as well as the descriptions from Adidas.

FIFA avoids own goal, Visit Saudi sponsorship of Women’s World Cup called off

FIFA just barely cleared a low bar, not that Infantino seems happy about it

A deeply unpopular choice from FIFA to bring Visit Saudi aboard as a 2023 World Cup sponsor is off.

At the FIFA Congress in Rwanda, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said Thursday that the premier women’s soccer tournament on the planet would not be sponsored by the tourism board of a country that has been roundly criticized for laws restricting women’s freedom.

Among other cricitism, the rumored interest between FIFA and Visit Saudi was condemned by the federations of both host countries, and referred to as “bizarre” by U.S. women’s national team star Alex Morgan.

Infantino sought to downplay the entire episode, telling the FIFA Congress that while “there were discussions with Visit Saudi,” no contracts ever materialized. “It was a storm in a tea cup.”

Infantino tries to side-step issue

The FIFA president then pivoted to an unrelated point about how Australia and Saudi Arabia engage in trade, which is of course not the issue at hand.

“When it comes to Australia, they have trade with Saudi Arabia, $1.5 billion per year. This doesn’t seem to be a problem,” said Infantino. “FIFA is an organization made up of 211 countries. There is nothing wrong with taking sponsorships from Saudi Arabia, China, United States of America, Brazil, or India.”

Infantino kept digging, eventually concluding that everyone should just be happy and not yell at him or FIFA.

“This year we will have the Women’s World Cup. This should be a celebration of women, it has to be,” said Infantino. “And yet there’s this negativity which always comes out. Why is that? Why can we not try a little bit to focus on the positive?”

A solid enough answer to these rhetorical questions can be found from the tournament’s hosts. Football New Zealand released a statement applauding the choice to avoid a sponsorship backed by the government of a country whose “Personal Status Law” — which effectively enshrined a male guardianship system for women as Saudi law — was recently decried by Amnesty International.

“New Zealand Football welcome the confirmation from FIFA that Visit Saudi will not be sponsoring the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023,” read the NZF statement. “We believe it is critical for all commercial partnerships to align with the vision and values of the tournaments they are involved in.”

Football Australia chief executive James Johnson struck a similar chord in a statement published by Reuters.

“We welcome clarification from FIFA regarding Visit Saudi,” said Johnson. “Equality, diversity and inclusion are really deep commitments for Football Australia and we’ll continue to work hard with FIFA to ensure the Women’s World Cup is shaped in this light.”

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Henry turns down approach to be France women’s coach

France is looking at some big names for their women’s national team job

Credit France for thinking big when it comes to replacing Corinne Diacre.

According to Lyon owner and French federation board member Jean-Michel Aulas, he approached Thierry Henry to lead the women’s national team at this summer’s World Cup.

Board members Aulas, Marc Keller, Aline Riera and Laura Georges have been tasked by the French federation to sound out potential candidates to replace Diacre, who was fired last week after a player revolt.

While that group has sought out numerous candidates, the Arsenal legend has taken himself out of the running.

In an interview with Le Figaro, Aulas said Henry “considered it,” but ultimately opted to remove himself from the running.

“I personally asked him the question, but the response was not positive,” said Aulas. “He was obviously very flattered that he was asked. We did it because we were told he might be interested. But it will not be Thierry Henry. I think he is moving on to other projects.”

Henry was most recently an assistant coach on Roberto Martínez’s Belgium staff, and has a prominent role as a studio pundit for CBS’s Champions League coverage. Henry’s experience as a head coach has been limited to a rocky spell at Monaco (where he lasted less than four months) and one season as the head coach of what was then known as the Montréal Impact. Henry stepped down from the MLS side in February 2021, citing a desire to be able to see his children in London, something he couldn’t do at the time due to Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions.

On Thursday, ESPN reported that Henry has his eyes set on the other side of the Atlantic, with the 45-year-old apparently hoping to land the U.S. men’s national team job.

Prominent names still in the mix

The French federation hardly had all of its eggs in the Henry basket. Le Figaro‘s report says that Jocelyn Gourvennec, the former manager of the men’s teams at Guingamp, Bordeaux, and Lille, has spoken to the board about his vision for the role.

Diacre’s former assistant Eric Blahic, Lyon boss Sonia Bompastor, Paris Saint-Germain manager Gérard Prêcheur, Saudi Arabia men’s head coach Hervé Renard, and Paris FC’s Sandrine Soubeyrand — whose 198 caps make her a record holder for France — have all been in consideration as well.

Reports hold that France would like to hire a new coach as soon as possible, which is not a massive surprise given how close the World Cup is. Les Bleues have just two pre-World Cup friendlies scheduled, both of which take place in mere weeks. They host Colombia on April 6, and Canada on April 11.

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