You have to wonder if #woke women’s sports athletes are putting up with men in their sport because it improves the odds someone will care enough to watch it. Being athletic or good doesn’t seem to matter. It’s never enough.
Women’s basketball doesn’t draw much of a crowd in the US, but you’d think World Cup Soccer could everywhere else. It does when it’s the men. But FIFA is begging people to buy tickets for the Women’s World Cup tournament Down Under.
With the Women’s World Cup getting underway Thursday, CNN reported Wednesday that FIFA was still struggling to sell tickets to the monthlong event, which is being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
In an effort to turn that around, FIFA President Gianni Infantino implored New Zealanders to purchase tickets for the women’s soccer showcase.
“New Zealand, we want you. We need you,” Infantino said during a news conference Wednesday in Auckland.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing. Come to watch the matches. We need full stadiums to warm us all up,” he added, emphasizing the significance of enthusiastic support from the home crowd.
Warm us up? Yes, it’s winter in New Zealand, which begs the question, why there. The same report notes that the local women’s team stinks and Soccer isn’t all that popular. What was FIFA thinking? Let’s find the worst place to hold a Women’s World Cup and then complain when no one shows up.
And New Zealand might not be the worst place for Women’s Soccer. They could have picked Qatar, Saudi Arabia, or Iran, where women are more property than people, but they at least like Soccer.
New Zealand sounds like a top ten worst place to do this, and they are doing it, and it’s not going well. And it’s not just because it’s cold. So the problem might not just be women’s Soccer. It might be the folks at FIFA. And it wouldn’t be the first time the world has had a problem with them.
