[Photo of Football. Photo Credit to Unsplash]

On July 20th, 2023, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 officially started, taking place first in Australia. 

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 was jointly hosted by both New Zealand and Australia, an event for women football players to have an opportunity to compete with other players from various nations. 

32 different nations have joined the tournament, which is 8 nations more than the last FIFA Women’s World Cup held in 2019. 

People were particularly excited about this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup since the event was co-hosted, meaning that two different countries would host it together.

Therefore, though this event is taking place in Australia at the moment, it is planned to continue over a month in New Zealand as well. 

It is common that world cup events take place in one country like the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup did in France, but this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup is FIFA’s first co-hosted women’s tournament. 

This new system has made people pay more attention to this event as they are curious how this event would flow with the co-hosting system. 

Though historically less recognized than the men’s game, there is a long history behind the organization of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. 

This tournament will be crucial for shining a spotlight on women football players. 

In the past, FIFA has contributed to downplaying women’s ability to play football. 

Gender discrimination against women is extremely prevalent in the sport. 

Women were restricted and shunned from playing the game, and other equity problems such as pay and employment also existed. 

Along these lines, people usually had the assumption that “sports” were usually made for mens to play, while women should stay inside the home.

Obviously, this is extremely untrue. 

Nonetheless, the sad reality is that there still is gender discrimination due to the vast history of patriarchal oppression, especially behind sports like football. 

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, thus, is also about reducing gender discrimination and to promote women’s rights and gender equality. 

It provides opportunities for womens to freely participate in football games, which could break the bias that only mens can play in sports such as football. 

The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 is already a far more successful event compared to past tournaments, with 1.5 million tickets sold to people all around the world. 

Moreover, there was a 54% increase in total attendance of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, compared to the one in 2019, a record increase.