FIFA Must Stick To Prize Money Promises At Women’s World Cup

It was not the way Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation, had imagined the Women’s World Cup would begin. She was walking to the gym in downtown Auckland when a 24-year-old gunman, later identified as Matu Reid, on home detention for domestic violence, stormed Commercial Bay. Police moved to shut down the city center, but Klaveness heard the gunshots. Norway’s team hotel was a stone’s throw away from the scene and she liaised to ensure the safety and security of the players.

“I felt safe all along because the police were present,” recalls Klaveness. “It was very obvious that it was one person and that he was in the building. Of course, you hear the shots, you know that people are dying. That’s at least what you think, that this might be a deadly shot.”

The shooting rattled New Zealand, but, unfortunately, there was little time for Klaveness to linger on the deadly shooting. That evening, Norway took on the host nation in the tournament’s curtain raiser, and again it was not how Klaveness had envisioned the Women’s World Cup would kick off.

This was the biggest stage of them all, the moment of truth, but the Kiwis simply played their hearts out, with a ferocity and panache that the much-fancied Norwegians, with Ada Hegerberg and Caroline Graham Hansen in their ranks, could not match.

It’s a view Klaveness shares – Norway were on the back foot from the start and froze – and she traces the result back to the trauma of the previous European championship. “We lost 8-0 [against England]. That’s not life and death, but in sports that shook us,” explains Klaveness. “That is a sports trauma. More important than the result is for Norway to find their spirit and self-esteem again.”

Among a handful of female leaders in the game, Klaveness however has concerns that extend beyond the immediate future of her team. The build-up to the tournament was marred by serious good governance violations by some of the finalists’ federations and on the eve of the tournament soccer boss Gianni Infantino, who constantly claims that the ‘new’ FIFA knows where its money ends up, could no longer guarantee that each player at the tournament would receive the minimum of $30,000 in prize money. Infantino almost seemed to renege on the promise.

At this World Cup, the prize money is $110 million, up from $30 million at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, a move Klaveness calls “groundbreaking” and one she firmly backs, remembering her own playing days as a professional player on a paltry pay. However, she wants the world federation to stick to the playbook.

“In the letter from FIFA when the prize money was announced, it was a condition that the prize money had to go to the players and it will also be subject to audit,” explains Klaveness. “There is room for doubt. It was a legal condition in the worded statement. That still stands. For the Philippines or countries where the women’s side is not professional, this is huge. Perhaps it would have been more useful to spend it on the grassroots. FIFA used its symbolic position here. If you now start to renege on this, a good promise that will help the women’s game will turn negative for FIFA and [become] a credibility issue.

At the opening game against New Zealand, Klaveness sat next to Infantino and the pair spoke for the first time since the FIFA Congress in Doha. Last year, Klaveness delivered a courageous and thundering speech highlighting the plight of both migrant workers and the LGBT community in Qatar for which she received global acclaim. In soccer, however, she became alienated, reflected by her defeat in the elections for a seat on the UEFA executive committee. DBU president Jesper Moller and Albania’s Armand Duka were among those who retained their seat.

“FIFA, if they want, have a lot of means to enforce the distribution of prize money,” says Klaveness. “I hope the hesitance was not because things are shifting. In life, there are no guarantees, but FIFA has the means to ensure that money is paid to the players. These federations, in particular outside of Europe, are so dependent on FIFA that that should not be difficult.”

Klaveness however sees a lot of positives at this Women’s World Cup – an expanded playing field of 32-teams, allowing Haiti and others to participate and develop; a push towards prize money parity in 2027 and a larger debate on the rights of female players, ranging from pregnancy leave to protection against sexual harassment. “In the past, women’s soccer wasn’t a professional sport, it was just athletes training twice a day,” says Klaveness. “I was a professional, but I didn’t save a penny. Today, players are empowered and worth money to the federations and the country. A lot of this friction and clashes will continue, but that was also the case on the men’s side when it moved from amateur to professional.”

Things then are moving in the right direction, all Klaveness needs now is for Norway to fire on all cylinders against Switzerland in its next Group A match. She reminded the players that Norway went on to win Olympic gold in 2000 after losing its opening match. A renaissance then is not impossible.