According to Mail Sport, FIFA recently sent an email asking to hire 50 male players aged 15 and over to participate in training sessions with referees in preparation for the 2023 World Cup.
FIFA to hire only male players to assist referees before 2023 World Cup.
“FIFA’s refereeing department sent an email requesting to hire only 50 male players aged 15 and over, who would be paid around $32.80 per person per day to attend training sessions with the referees.
However, the incident caused controversy when a women's football club based in Sydney (Australia) brought their female players to participate to help FIFA, because they realized this was a women's World Cup. But they were ignored and even banned from participating," wrote Mail Sport.
The newspaper said that FIFA only hired male players to prepare for a women's World Cup, but they did not give a specific reason for this.
“FIFA officials asked these female players to wait or wait for a substitution. But they waited forever and were not called and finally they had to leave in frustration,” Mail Sport continued.
An Australian football official said it was surprising to have male players assisting the referee in a women's tournament.
Meanwhile, they were willing to bring other female players to support but were refused.
“This is a strange decision by FIFA, when the upcoming World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is for women's football.
But it is the female players who are discriminated against in their own glorified tournament,” commented a writer from Mail Sport.
FIFA has yet to make any comment on this matter.
According to the schedule, the 2023 Women's World Cup will begin on July 20 with a match between New Zealand and Norway.
At this tournament, the Vietnamese women's team will face the US (July 22), Portugal (July 27) and the Netherlands (August 1) in the group stage.
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