European Club Association (ECA) president Nasser Al-Khelaifi says women s football deserves more investment as he predicted amazing growth for the game.
Al-Khelaifi, who is also the president of Paris Saint-Germain, was speaking at the inaugural ECA Women s Football Summit in London.
In under a month, the eyes of the footballing world will be on Australia and New Zealand for the Women s World Cup.
And while women s football is arguably in a stronger position than ever before, Al-Khelaifi wants more to be done to ensure a bright future.
He said: I think women s football deserves more from us, definitely. It deserves more focus and investment financially.
If we re all together we can achieve much better results, we are much stronger.
I promise, as ECA chairman, on behalf of the entire board and management that we are committed to woman s football. We see the growth and we see, if we are together, the growth will be amazing.
Whether you like it or not, women s football is the future.
Attendees at the ECA Women s Football Summit were treated today to a great and insightful in conversation with the Chairman of our Women s Football Committee, Jean-Michel Aulas. …
— ECA (@ECAEurope)
FIFA s chief of women s football, Sarai Bareman, added: It was after that World Cup four years ago when we had 1.12 billion people tuning in to experience that watershed moment when we felt this huge explosion in the women s game. More than what we ve ever felt before.
Particularly since 2019 and particularly here in Europe, leagues and clubs are giving the world s best players more regular opportunities to earn a full-time living from football with professional structures.
They have opportunities to experience the conditions that their male counterparts have been accustomed to for so long.
And Bareman believes this World Cup will prove another landmark moment in the development of the women s game.
Although it s the ninth edition, it is a tournament of firsts. It s the first time we will have 32 teams. It s the first to be co-hosted by two countries across two confederations, and it s the first to be in the Southern Hemisphere and the Asia Pacific region, she said.
We want to have two billion people tuning in from around the world. That s our target.
We will have 1.5 million people filling the stadiums, and I m happy to say that we re well on track to achieving those ambitious goals.
The future for women s football is really, really bright. And I can t wait to see what this landscape will look like in September when we reflect on what will be the biggest FIFA Women s World Cup of all time.
