In less than a week’s time, one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar is set to kick off in Australia and New Zealand. But, in the UK at least, blink and you’ve probably missed it.
Turn on the TV or the radio, or take a stroll past a billboard, and it would be almost impossible to tell that the Women’s World Cup begins on July 20.
The tournament is set to be the highest-attended women’s sporting event in history, yet there has been shockingly little build-up and next to no promotional advertising – the result, in large part, of a shameful fiasco surrounding its broadcasting rights.
This time last month, Fifa was threatening a wholesale broadcast blackout of the tournament because of shockingly low offers of the event’s broadcast rights from the biggest European countries. Talks stalled after the offers were rejected, with Fifa’s president slamming the low bids as a “slap in the face of all the great Fifa Women’s World Cup players and indeed of all women worldwide”.
Last month, with just over 30 days before kick-off, the BBC and ITV finally confirmed a shared broadcast deal. The figure is believed to be about €9 million (£770 million), a measly eight per cent of what was paid for the men’s edition.
But despite a deal being reached, the damage has already been done.
After decades of neglect, women’s football in the UK had been riding high on the momentum from last year’s Euros. Women’s Super League attendance was up 200 per cent since the Lionesses’ history-making victory at Wembley.
There were promises of legacy, of a newfound and fundamental shift in the nation’s respect for the women’s game
There were promises of legacy, of a newfound and fundamental shift in the nation’s respect for the women’s game. It was the perfect backdrop to capitalise on going into the World Cup, for a sport still heavily reliant on major tournaments to boost interest and investment.
Instead, there was radio silence.
Compare this with the wall-to-wall, inescapable coverage that last year’s Men’s World Cup received. Anticipation was fostered for months, the build-up so all-consuming that even for the most uninitiated of football fans, it was impossible not to know every detail of the Three Lions’ schedule, with pub tables staked out months in advance for uproarious watch parties.
Now, imagine what the hype would have been like if the Three Lions had actually been champions of Europe going into the tournament.
With miniscule comparable funding, attention and prestige, the Lionesses managed to achieve this feat. Surely the bare minimum is the least they deserve.
