It’s an exciting time for women’s football. The exponential growth the sport has experienced in the last few years is nothing short of inspiring. History is being made with recent women’s football tournaments attracting record crowds.
But the trajectory of the sport hasn’t been easy, it’s been a long road filled with obstacles. Lack of investment and gender biases are some of the biggest challenges women’s football has had to face. There’s still a lot of work to do for the sport to get the recognition it deserves, but the work that some major sports organisations around the world are doing to elevate the game is gaining momentum.
The Acceleration of Women’s Football ⚽️
One of the organisations raising awareness of women’s football is FIFA. They are actively working to accelerate the sport’s growth by investing in development programmes and initiatives around the world.
At our recent PhotoShelter Summit we had the privilege of speaking with Marely Flores, FIFA’s Senior Tournament Manager, who has played a major part in the movement to bring women’s football into the mainstream.
Marely’s journey into women’s football itself is awe-inspiring. She has over 10 years of international experience in the planning, operational readiness, and delivery of major sporting events.
Originally from Mexico, she studied Marketing at university and also has a degree in Piano. This led her to a successful music production career and to work on the organisation of classical concerts in her country.
But from a young age she always enjoyed playing and watching football. There was an inflection point during her career when she decided to change course. Marely enrolled to study for a Master’s degree in Sports Administration and Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. This opened opportunities for her to work in different sports, such as tennis with the International Tennis Federation, boxing at IBA (International Association of Boxing), UEFA and ultimately at FIFA, where she currently manages tournament operations. Some of the major sporting events she’s worked on include Olympic Games, World Championships, 13 FIFA World Cups and UEFA competitions.
Here’s a clip where Marely explains her journey into women’s football:
A Timeline of FIFA Women’s World Cups for U-17, U-20 and Senior Teams
As part of the many initiatives FIFA is working on to raise the profile of the game, Marely told us that they’re applying the women’s World Cup concept to the format of youth tournaments in some diverse countries. This involves giving opportunities for countries to host FIFA World Cup-type of tournaments for the U-17 and U-20 teams, where FIFA covers all international travel and accommodation for the participating teams. In addition to giving a big boost to women’s football worldwide, these initiatives also have a big social impact. Marely explained that in the countries where the World Cup tournaments for U-17 and U-20 are hosted, FIFA also works on social responsibility projects for the benefit of women and the society of the host country.
FIFA’s on the road to the Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 in July. Here’s a timeline of some of these major FIFA Women’s World Cups for U-17 and U-20 and the social impact they’re having around the world:
FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica 2014 🇨🇷
For the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica in 2014, FIFA worked closely with a local committee and established a team that would ensure the infrastructure requirements of the 4 stadiums were strictly followed. This helped create a legacy by providing knowledge transfer and use of the stadiums for future tournaments, such as the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica 2022
FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Jordan 2016 🇯🇴
In 2016, FIFA organised the first Women’s World Cup in the Middle East, the U-17 Women’s World Cup Jordan 2016. At this tournament, it was the first time the hijab was officially part of the women’s football kit. Many of the official senior roles were held by women, including refereeing and operational roles such as Head of Human Resources and the CEO.
The country also launched an award-winning anti-smoking campaign, with the aim to establish an atmosphere of health, happiness and wellbeing at the tournament. The tournament’s stadia were declared smoke-free environments during the competition as required by FIFA for all its tournaments.
FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Papua New Guinea 2016 🇵🇬
Moving to a different part of the world, Papua New Guinea, the island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean hosted the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Papua New Guinea 2016. This was a different kind of tournament, as the focus wasn’t only on football, but also on raising awareness of social causes such as ending violence towards women and children. The government and local private companies worked together with the local community on the #ENDviolence campaign, with the aim to leave an enduring and tangible legacy throughout the region.
In partnership with Oceania Football Confederation, UNICEF, UN Women, and other organisations, FIFA focused on a series of key activities during the tournament to support this social cause.
FIFA U-20 Women’s World France 2018 🇫🇷
Marely explained in her PhotoShelter Summit session that the FIFA U-20 Women’s World France 2018 was a key tournament as it contributed to changing the perception of women playing football in the region. Although France’s women’s football is very well-developed and the country has a very strong team, having reached the final of some of the major football tournaments, this tournament was hosted in the Northwest of France.
In this region, there’s not much awareness of women’s football and the local stadium and tournament staff couldn’t understand why there were so many requirements from the international women’s teams that were participating. These teams were representing countries such as Brazil, New Zealand, and the USA, amongst others, and understandably their requirements included the need for good quality pitches, nutritionists, physicians etc.
But having toured the pitches to check their quality, and after some conversations Marely had with the local staff, they came to appreciate that these were professional women’s football players who had key requirements that needed to be met, like with any other professional team. This helped change the perception of women’s football in the local community and they were very happy to be able to raise the bar for the tournament in the region.
FIFA Women’s World France 2019 🇫🇷
Following the FIFA U-20 tournament in 2018, the senior Women’s World Cup was held in France in 2019. In this tournament, France raised the bar once more with the provision of first-class training pitches that had the same conditions as the one from the main stadium. Each team had a designated training site (24 sites in total). They also ran leadership workshops with the U-20 teams where all the captains from the teams were invited, to help them develop their leadership skills and establish friendships amongst themselves.
For this World Cup, FIFA’s Sustainability strategy was summarised in this statement:
This tournament was a real catalyst for women’s football. Marely took us through some of the major milestones from the tournament, by doing a comparison of the Women’s World Cup France 2019’s key highlights versus the ones from the tournament in Canada in 2015. This included reaching 993.5 million unique viewers on linear TV compared to 764 million viewers in Canada in 2015, and the most watched #FIFAWWC match ever, with 263.62 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the France vs. USA final!
FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica 2022 🇨🇷
We go back to Costa Rica for the penultimate tournament in this timeline, the U-20 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica 2022. This was a tournament of many ‘firsts’ according to Marely. FIFA’s incredible work at previous tournaments paved the way to create a very successful World Cup for the U-20 team in 2022.
Some of the key highlights included:
- The first tournament with all women Video Operations Referees
- The first tournament with a safeguarding programme to protect the players
- 1000th goal
- The exponential growth of content on social media, 142% increase on TikTok
FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023 🇦🇺🇳🇿
We finally reach the last tournament in this timeline, the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023. We can’t wait to follow the action in July!
“Bringing the tournament to Australia and New Zealand is helping raise awareness of women’s football in that part of the world, which sometimes is isolated from the rest of the world,” said Marely.
For this tournament, Marely explained that the work from the previous tournaments is having a major impact on the level of interest in this year’s World Cup. Many of the players have developed their technical skills since 2019 and there’s real momentum spreading from all corners of the globe.
There’s already a lot of buzz around this year’s tournament, and as we move towards Spring and Summer, we expect to see a lot more excitement.
Looking Ahead…
It’s been an incredible journey for women’s football, and as Marely said: “We can’t change the world in one day”.
At PhotoShelter we believe that each tournament and moment in time is helping to change perceptions and move us closer to the GOAL: To see women’s football get to the mainstream place it deserves. It’s just a matter of time, and it’s already starting to make an impact.
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