Alex Morgan said increased investment in the women’s sport should be part of any plan for the biennial World Cup.
Morgan, a star in the US women’s national team, is part of a FIFA technical advisory group announced this week that is considering a proposal to stage the World Cup every two years.
When it comes to the World Cup we looked at not only the financial part of it, but also the increase in the number of confederations in which women’s teams play throughout the year, not just playing in qualifiers once every four years – or possibly In future also. Once every two years, Morgan said. So how do we continue to encourage and invest more money in the women’s sport? It’s also a big piece of it, I don’t think you can have one without the other. You can’t have a biennial World Cup without addressing the financial piece.
Former US coach Jill Ellis is leading the group, which includes former and current players, coaches, referees and administrators.
Morgan is open to the biennial plan, but did not outright support it on Tuesday, speaking to reporters ahead of the US team’s match against South Korea in Kansas City, Kansas.
“With World Cup history, I think it’s really hard to understand the concept of changing every four years to two years because historically it’s what we did and what we used to,” Morgan said. But I also look at the evolution of the women’s game and how it can really benefit club leagues around the world, it can really benefit every federation and their players in terms of visibility, more for women’s football. In terms of getting coverage. “
FIFA last month revealed its aspirations to revamp the calendar of international football competitions to hold the men’s and women’s World Cups every two years.
This idea has been widely criticized. UEFA and CONMEBOL have threatened to boycott the tournament and the International Olympic Committee has also come out against the plan. Global players’ union FIFPro has also raised concerns.
Morgan said the biennial World Cup is not a compromise and that’s why the advisory board is important.
There is still a lot of discussion to be had, but I think this advisory board was created to listen to the players. So if all the players said, ‘No, this is crazy, we can’t do this, it will hurt women’s football globally in a way that we can’t recover from’ (FIFA President Gianni Infantino) and FIFA is going to listen. Are you? Of course, she said. That’s what the advisory board has been set up to do, there is a consensus of the players who are really going to be affected by it both positively and negatively. This is not a decision taken lightly.
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