Women's football found itself on the frontline of the fight for the "soul of football" despite being barely acknowledged in Fifa's abandoned sales pitch. The governing body's 25-page presentation to its 211 member associations, now waste paper, contained a single mention of the women's game.
Uefa takes a stand
Uefa responded with a declaration of war against Fifa president Gianni Infantino. European national teams would not "participate in any Fifa competition for so long as these proposals remain alive, unless this proposal has been abandoned in its entirety and binding assurances have been given that Fifa will never again open its governance or competitions to private ownership", the governing body said.
The timing made women's tournaments the most exposed. The Under-20 Women's World Cup is due to be held in Poland next month; the Under-17 Women's World Cup and Uefa's qualifying playoffs for the senior tournament both begin in October; and the Women's World Cup itself takes place in Brazil next summer. Had a boycott gone ahead, these would have been the first test cases. England's two-legged playoff against Greece in September would also have been affected, though no further detail was given on the Football Association's plans.
Financial stakes
A boycott of the Women's World Cup would have been catastrophic, and it was the likely consequence of Infantino's deadline. The 2023 Women's World Cup was the first to break even after generating more than $570m (£424m) in revenue, and Fifa said in May 2025 it is targeting $1bn in revenue from the 2027 edition.
The women's game is heavily reliant on international competition for its growth. Losing the World Cup would have set progress back far more than four years. Yet Uefa's stance was correct: Infantino's plan collapsed after the fallout, proving the stand was necessary. European football's governing body did not create the timeframe that placed women's football on the frontline, and it was right not to exclude women's or youth football from its fight-back.
Infantino's record
The blame lies with Gianni "I have four daughters" Infantino. In February, Jill Ellis, Fifa's chief football officer and twice a World Cup-winning coach, praised his "commitment to accelerating the women's game and increasing women's influence in shaping its future" and said under his leadership "investment has moved from rhetoric to action".
To an extent that is fair. Infantino has invested more in women's football than any of his predecessors, but the bar is staggeringly low: Sepp Blatter said in 2004 that "tighter shorts" was the way to attract more viewers to the women's game. For Infantino, the women's game has been a pawn, first useful for presenting Fifa as progressive and in tune with modern society, and now for its medium- to long-term financial potential as one of the fastest growing and least tapped areas of the sport.
His real attitude has been visible. In 2023 Sky News reported that he left the Women's World Cup for Tahiti after less than a week before returning later in the tournament. At the 2022 men's World Cup, he attended at least part of all 64 games, sometimes appearing at two a day during the latest men's edition despite the environmental cost of private jet travel.
A warning for all
With the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil starting in less than 11 months, Infantino may have chosen the beginning of the men's World Cup cycle to limit backlash. In doing so, he added to the evidence of his real attitude towards the women's game. It would have been oddly fitting if the women's game had become the sun that melted his Icarus wings, but it did not have to pay that costly price.
This episode should serve as a warning to anyone who cares about the future of both the women's and men's games. The European Super League debacle and this latest attempt to hand football's wealth to private finance show that private finance will keep returning, searching for ways to claim a share.
