By Andrew Warshaw
May 8 – Sepp Blatter reckons the upcoming women’s World Cup could be the biggest breakthrough yet for the sport and that more women should occupy positions of administrative power at FIFA.
For months, the tournament in Canada was plagued by a dispute over the use of artificial turf, but Blatter says this is the opportunity to for the women’s game to catch up.
The FIFA president told the BBC that women’s football was still “limping a little bit behind” the men but that Canada could be a “market opener” especially now that the event has been expanded to 24 teams.
In 2004, six years after coming to power, Blatter caused controversy by suggesting female players could wear tighter shorts to help market their game. Now, he said, times have moved on.
“Women’s football must market itself. It’s a product and the product must have quality,” Blatter said. “Now it’s up to the ladies in this World Cup to show that it’s a great event because the television coverage will be done exactly like the FIFA World Cup.”
“Men’s football should share with women’s football to get new partners for women’s football. It is not easy because the market is focused on men’s football.”
In what has been a rare interview prior to the May 29 FIFA presidential elections, Blatter was specifically discussing women’s football and did not address his pursuit of a fifth term of office.
“I am very eager to know if 24 teams is the right number,” he said of a tournament which previously had 16 finalists. “I am sure it is the right number but it has to be confirmed by the quality of the teams participating.”
Blatter wants to change the FIFA statutes to make it easier for women to occupy positions of power around the globe.
Only two women run their national federations while Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera is the only elected female member of FIFA’s executive committee, with Moya Dodd, Asian Football Federation vice-president, and Sonia Bien-Aime, president of the Turks and Caicos Islands Football Association, serving as co-opted members. Last month, Bien-Aime also became the first female elected on to the executive committee of CONCACAF.
“”We have to change the statutes because I am the only person (as president) who is elected by the Congress,” said Blatter. “You should ask the confederations like Europe and Asia, where women’s football has developed, to propose a woman in (FIFA) executive committee.”
As things stand now, said Blatter, “it would be easier for a woman to be elected a FIFA president than to be elected as a (FIFA executive) member of one of the confederations.”
Karen Espelund, the only female member of UEFA’s executive committee, told the BBC in the same programme: “Girls and women add value to the total product and I find it a little bit strange that not more commercial people see that.”
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