FIFA’s chief women’s football officer Sarai Bareman is paying close attention to the ongoing investigations following the release of the Yates report, which found evidence of systemic abusive behaviour in a number of NWSL clubs in the United States.
In Australia to promote the release of tickets for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Bareman said she is well aware of the intense scrutiny on the culture within women’s football and, while it currently sits outside FIFA’s remit, they are monitoring the situation closely.
“It’s a bit tricky in terms of jurisdiction. Certainly at this stage we sit back, we wait for the investigations to be complete and obviously with me in my role, it’s something I’m keeping a very, very close eye on,” Bareman told ESPN in an exclusive interview.
Pressed further on whether FIFA has a responsibility to react to the findings in the Yates report, which was released on Oct. 3, as well as accounts of harassment and bullying in women’s football in France and numerous other countries around the world, Bareman was adamant that making the game a safe space is a priority.
“Absolutely. Those cases that you brought up, first of all it’s important to say that FIFA absolutely has a zero tolerance policy for any kind of abuse, harassment or discrimination in football, it just doesn’t belong — especially in the women’s game,” she said.
“For me, that’s something that I feel very, very passionate about and I guess on a more personal level, especially with the stuff that came out in the Yates report and obviously there is more stuff going on at the moment, in terms of the investigation, it’s heartbreaking.
“Think about the players. For me that just has no place in our game and it takes the Yates report and those high profile situations to bring it to the surface.
“If that’s what it takes to get it out of our game, then let it come out, let’s talk about it because that’s how we stamp it out.”
The NWSL and NWSLPA are still in the midst of an ongoing investigation into many of the incidents referenced in the Yates report.
A former Samoa international, Bareman was the only female member of FIFA’s 2016 Reform Committee. Subsequently appointed as FIFA’s first-ever chief women’s football officer, she leads a newly created Women’s Football Division as part of FIFA’s management board and said she is well aware of importance of her role.
“It’s a huge, huge task. It’s responsibility but also privilege to be in a position where I can come into a job every day and know that what I’m doing can actually have a positive impact on a little girl, or a woman from Africa all the way to Oceania, Europe, everywhere — that’s a privilege and I take it super seriously,” she said.
Hinting at future plans to introduce a Women’s Club World Cup competition, Bareman’s immediate focus is on the delivery of a successful Women’s World Cup in 2023 and leveraging the opportunity to create a legacy where football is accessible for every woman and girl around the world.
“FIFA has 211 member associations and our goal, and my team’s goal, is to ensure that all women and girls in every single one of those countries have the opportunity to play and what a World Cup does is provide an amazing boom and this ‘moment in time’ where the eyes of the world are on women’s football,” she said.
“And maybe in those places where traditionally girls are not seen to be able to play or perhaps have some barriers, a World Cup can do something special in those moments and maybe unlock doors that traditionally they haven’t been able to.”
