Gianni Infantino sparks World Cup backlash with comments on football equality

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Fifa president Gianni Infantino provoked a backlash on the eve of the World Cup final after offering advice to women on the “battle” for equality in football, saying they had the “power to convince us men what we have to do”.

With England and Spain set to compete for the biggest prize in football on Sunday, the head of the global sport told the second Fifa Women’s Football Convention in Sydney of the need “to start treating women and men in the same way”.

“I say to all the women — and you know I have four daughters, so I have a few at home — that you have the power to change,” Infantino told the audience.

The head of the sport’s world governing body told women to “pick the right battles” and that they had “the power to convince us men what we have to do and what we don’t have to do”.

“You do it, just do it,” Infantino added. “With me, with Fifa you will find open doors. Just push the doors, they are open.”

Women have been marginalised in the world’s favourite sport for decades, as male-dominated football authorities have made a priority of the men’s game for investment and marketing.

The Women’s World Cup is set to have attracted 2bn viewers on screens globally, with almost 2mn tickets sold for the matches in Australia and New Zealand. The tournament had generated $570mn, allowing it to break even, according to Infantino.

Ada Hegerberg, the Norwegian star and Ballon d’Or winner, was among those to respond to Infantino’s remarks.

“Working on a little presentation to convince men,” she wrote on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “Who’s in?”

Jacqui Oatley, the football commentator, posted: “We’ve been battling for decades against this sort of nonsense. So, so poor from Infantino.”

It is not the first time that Infantino has sparked controversy with his remarks. In Doha last year, he hit back against critics of Qatar as hosts of the men’s World Cup.

“Today I feel Qatari,” he told assembled journalists at that tournament. “Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel [like] a migrant worker. I feel like them because I know what it means . . . to be bullied.”

Fifa began staging the Women’s World Cup in 1991, whereas the men’s tournament began in 1930. Infantino has previously set out plans to introduce equal prize money in time for the 2026 men’s and 2027 women’s tournaments.

However, on Friday he warned that equal prize money at the World Cup was a “slogan”.

“That would not solve anything because it’s one month every four years and it’s a few players out of the thousands and thousands of players,” he said. “We need to go for equality but we have to do it for real.”