Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) President Gianni Infantino says the success of the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand has silenced critics who questioned FIFA’s decision to expand the number of participating nations to 32.카지노사이트

“FIFA’s decision has benefited women’s football around the world,” Infantino said at the FIFA Women’s Football Convention 2023 in Sydney, Australia, on Monday. “We have invested more than $1 billion in football, with a particular focus on women’s football.”

“We continued to invest even in the face of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), and women’s soccer survived the difficult times, and we decided to increase the number of teams in the Women’s World Cup to 32,” he added.

“Critics of expanding the field said it wouldn’t work and that there would be a huge disparity in quality,” Infantino said. “In the end, we were right. Eight countries made their World Cup debut.”

When FIFA initially decided to expand the field from 24 to 32 countries, critics said the quality of the competition would suffer.

However, fears of a ‘dud’ were put to rest when Nigeria (40th), Jamaica (43rd), South Africa (54th), and Morocco (72nd) – all ranked below 40 in the FIFA Women’s World Cup rankings – made it through the group stage.

“The Women’s World Cup broke even, generating more than $570 million ($761.7 billion) in revenue,” Pantino said. We didn’t break even,” he emphasized.