FIFA announced that it has reached an agreement with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to broadcast the 2023 Women’s World Cup across Europe.
The news comes just a month before the World Cup starts, and one month after FIFA president Gianni Infantino threatened to not broadcast the tournament in Europe due to offers he called “simply not acceptable.”
Infantino did not end up carrying out his threat, with Wednesday’s agreement set to have the 2023 World Cup shown on EBU’s free-to-air linear TV network across 34 European territories.
The networks that will broadcast the tournament include ARD/ZDF (Germany), BBC/ITV (UK), France Télévisions (France), RAI (Italy) and RTVE (Spain).
The agreement between FIFA and the EBU includes digital and radio rights, and also sees the EBU commit to broadcasting at least one hour of weekly content dedicated to the women’s game.
“This will provide a huge promotional and exposure opportunity for women’s football, which is a top priority for us in line with FIFA’s commitment to the long-term development of the sport,” Infantino said in a press release.
EBU director general Noel Curran added: “We see women’s football as being central to our content strategy and one of the cornerstones of the new digital platform we hope to launch next year.”
Infantino had previously hit out at broadcasters across Europe, claiming that offers from the “big five” European countries — England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France — had been 20 to 100 times lower than for the men’s World Cup.
“It is our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” he said last month. “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 five’ European countries.”
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