The 2023 Women’s World Cup kicked off earlier this morning, but you wouldn’t be able to tell that by the ticket sales.
The amount of people - or lack thereof - paying to see this event has been a problem since early June, despite ridiculously cheap prices (at that time, a ticket would cost less than four gallons of gas). The situation has clearly not improved, as the President of International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) Gianni Infantino is now begging for fans in New Zealand (which is co-hosting the tournament) to buy tickets.
But his pitch starts off in an unorthodox way. He told the fans that they have a moral obligation to attend the matches.
“New Zealand, we want you. We need you,” Infantino said at a press conference in Auckland, New Zealand. “It’s never too late to do the right thing. Come to watch the matches. We need full stadiums to warm us all up.”
Not only is the head of perhaps the most powerful sports body in the world begging for citizens in the host nation to buy tickets, the tournament’s official partner, Xero, has offered 20,000 complimentary tickets to matches in the four host cities to incentivize people to get in.
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While Kiwis might be interested in soccer, the sports with the biggest following in that country are cricket and rugby, so fans might just not be interested in the product. Women’s soccer also isn’t nearly as entertaining as men’s soccer, so New Zealanders just might not be interested in a B-list entertainment product, no matter how cheap the tickets are. Also, many soccer athletes at these tournaments use it as a chance to protest in favor of social justice causes (see: team USA), and fans might not want to waste a few hours of their day watching that.
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But Infantino thinks that all that needs to happen for fans to change their opinion about women’s soccer is coming to a match and seeing how the game has progressed.
“Well, when they watch a game for the first time, they will actually see that it’s a fantastic game,” he said. “ It’s very entertaining. It’s great athletes playing, the level has grown incredibly in the last 10 years, and the best are coming here.”
The game may be entertaining and it may have improved in many ways, but fans do not have a moral obligation to attend games just to boost FIFA’s attendance numbers. The only “right thing” Kiwis can do in this situation is make the choice for themselves whether to attend, no matter how Infantino feels about it.
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Clearly, we need a review! If you know your civics, representatives like Mfume won't be fooling anyone with this nonsense. pic.twitter.com/TBgPg13u42
— MRCTV (@mrctv) July 20, 2023