When I played for the Matildas at FIFA’s first women’s tournament in 1988, it was beyond contemplation that a wealthy tourism authority might pay an eye-popping amount to buy the attention of the audience watching us. That audience, by the way, was several thousand Chinese schoolchildren.
Now FIFA is planning to make Visit Saudi a sponsor of the Women’s World Cup. Apparently, the audience is ripe for harvest, and commanding a handsome price.
I have no quibble with an overdue correction to the longstanding undervaluation of women’s sports fans. They are younger, funkier, more values-driven, more loyal and more digital savvy than the average Joe Sixpack in the stands or on the couch.
They create a vibe quite distinct from men’s football. It’s safe, inclusive and non-violent – nowhere better demonstrated than in the European Championship finals held at Wembley in England a year apart. The men’s crowd descended into chaos and hostility; the women’s final – with an even bigger crowd – had zero fan problems.
After the match, rival English and German fans told jokes and held singing contests as they waited in nightclub queues, urged on by otherwise redundant security guards. Weirdly, the gender of those playing the game seemed to have an outsize effect on the conduct of those watching.
Perhaps this is because fans of women’s football know, and deeply feel, a sense of safety, purpose and belonging around the sport they love. In particular, there will be many LGBTQ+ players and fans at the Women’s World Cup for whom football is a place where they can express themselves. Many more will be watching from afar, seeing players like Sam Kerr and Megan Rapinoe being awesome, adored and gay – all at the same time – in a team that accepts them for who they are.
Soccer stars Sam Kerr and Megan Rapinoe. Credit:Getty
If any of those fans are watching from Saudi Arabia, they will be living with grave risks. The most recent State-Sponsored Homophobia Report by ILGA World – which campaigns for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex human rights – lists Saudi Arabia as a country where, “We have full legal certainty that the death penalty is the legally prescribed punishment for consensual same-sex sexual acts”.
For FIFA to tell LGBTQ players and fans they should “Visit Saudi” is to send them to a jurisdiction where they are regarded as criminals (and where all women face seriously restricted rights, notwithstanding recent encouraging progress). FIFA would be selling them into persecution. It’s hard to imagine a greater mismatch for the unique and valuable audience the women’s game has accrued.
This is not to say FIFA, or hosts Australia and New Zealand, should disengage from Saudi Arabia. I’m thrilled by the progress women’s football has made there in recent times. A decade ago, I met Saudi women who were defying the rules by playing out of sight in walled compounds. Now they have a legitimate league, and a national team with an excellent coach.
As a symbol of progress, it doesn’t get much more powerful than allowing women and girls to play the most popular sport in a football-mad nation. I applaud those working hard to make this happen. Change needs committed people on the inside, and we should not underestimate the challenges they face.
FIFA can support Saudi’s advancement by ensuring that football’s systems reward progress, and by empowering women to achieve more.
It can support the Women’s World Cup by respecting the fans and players who have bootstrapped it from decades of neglect and underinvestment, to a showcase for women’s sport and one of the biggest single-sport competitions in the world.
The women’s football community, with its inclusive kindness vibe and inspiring sense of purpose, deserves better. If FIFA is seriously proposing to these fans and players that they should “Visit Saudi”, then they profoundly misunderstand either their own community, or the laws in Saudi Arabia.
Imagine if FIFA instead nurtured this diverse, extraordinary fanbase with partners who align with messages of inclusion, social purpose and hope. In a place like Sydney – host to the Mardi Gras, World Pride and this year’s Women’s World Cup final – that’s the only kind of sponsor that will resonate.
Moya Dodd is a former Matildas vice-captain, and was one of the first women on the FIFA Council (2013-2016).
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