The Women’s World Cup starts today. Australia and New Zealand welcome 32 nations, 732 players and 94 referees to take the pulse of improving the quality of football and the performance of women through 64 matches, a sport that has become an engine of social change and that is increasingly integrating access to fundamental rights into its sporting philosophy. On this occasion, the Women’s World Cup will prioritize two major ambitions towards gender equality: promoting pay equity and preventing sexual abuse of women in sport.

Ecuadorian referee Mónica Amboya appointed assistant for Australia and New Zealand 2023 Women’s World Cup.

Although our Ecuadorian women’s national team will not compete in the World Cup, we will have a national team through arbitration. The Latin American countries that will play for the Cup are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Haiti and Panama. Six countries representing a region characterized by persistent gender inequality, which is also visible in sport through four factors: gender stereotypes and discrimination, lack of funding for technical training and infrastructure, disparity in wages and professionalization, and lack of visibility and representation.

Sports reporting directly affects gender norms and stereotypes, with the media having a responsibility to promote balanced coverage of men’s and women’s sports, as well as fair representation of athletes, regardless of gender. However, FIFA warned that while broadcasters pay between $100 and $200 million for the men’s World Cup, they only offer between $1 and ten million for the Women’s World Cup. The call for “justice and respect” is the first step in this World Cup that obliges the sports, communication and entertainment industries to meet the standards of fairness before their audience, market and society.

Francisco Egas: Painful elimination from the women’s team; we deserved more happiness

Despite the fact that one of the main sources of funding for the World Cup comes from broadcast rights, this World Cup is gradually progressing thanks to economic fairness; In this ninth edition, 160 million dollars were invested in its organization, which tripled the figure of the 2019 World Cup; for the first time, each champion player will receive $270,000, and the team that wins the gold will also receive

4,290,000 dollars. The championship provides a record fee for each player depending on the event in which his team reaches the tournament, which starts at $30,000 per player.

The World Cup will give priority to the prevention of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse of women, through the implementation of protection programs aimed at participants and fans: there will be protection and social welfare officers for players and assistants, a digital system for anonymous reporting of abuse will be enabled, and online monitoring of abuse will be activated for players.

The motto of this World Championship is “Size without limits”; every goal achieved in these 30 days will reinforce the equality marker that demands visibility, respect and justice. (OR)