Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, the President of the Jordan Football Association and the leading candidate for the new FIFA President according to oddsmakers, has announced his commitment to improving the gender imbalance within soccer’s governing body and supporting the women’s game with both financial resources and representation.
“I believe women’s football is one of the biggest growth areas within the game, and we have to do all we can now to promote women’s football,” he said at a National Press Center luncheon in Washington, D.C. on Friday.
FIFA has been dogged by accusations of sexism for years, most recently at the women’s World Cup in Canada this summer where the women were forced to play on turf instead of real grass, a significant health risk. When FIFA’s reform committee met this week, Moya Dodd, currently the only woman on FIFA’s executive committee, presented a proposal that would help the organization address these issues. The committee did respond, proposing, among other things, that the number of women on the executive committee be increased from one to six.
But Ali said that while the steps laid out by the reform committee were an “important step,” there was a lot more work to do. The new reforms — which will be voted on by FIFA Congress on February 26, the same day as the presidential election — propose having a women’s rep from each conference. Ali suggested having a woman’s representive for each national association as well.
When asked about the glaring pay inequality between the men’s and women’s game — the United States Women’s National Team was awarded $2 million from FIFA by winning the Women’s World Cup this year in Canada, while the German men’s team was awarded $35 million for winning their championship the year before — Ali stated his desire to see that gap decrease, although he didn’t provide any specifics.
“I think that’s a very big issue right now. We have to look at changing those dynamics,” he said. “One of the things we see within FIFA — and honestly with the national associations — is the worry that if you invest more in women’s football that somehow it takes away from the men’s game or investment in the men’s game, which is totally incorrect. We have to have a lot more emphasis and really give the women’s side of the game more independence because that would really help to get them moving in the way that we want.”
Ali, who is a member of the ruling family in Jordan, presents himself as a potential trailblazer. Though he has been a part of FIFA for years, both as a member of the executive committee and as the vice president of Asia, he has tried to distance himself from the current regime, even resigning from the executive committee last May. He said he was “ashamed” and “disturbed” by the FIFA corruption scandal that has led to the arrests and indictments of dozens of top officials.
Still, while he is supportive of the investigations into Russia and Qatar, the controversial hosts of the next two men’s World Cups, and adamant that he will not tolerate any human rights violations as president, he believes that both nations should keep their World Cup bids because he “believes in the right of every country to host the World Cup.”
Throughout his talk, Ali reiterated his desire for transparency and accountability within FIFA. He said that while the organization has a lot of work to do if it wants to change the deep-seated culture of corruption, he still thought that the governing body would be able to return to respectability because “football can literally change lives.”
Ali recognized that a big part of improving FIFA is going to be making it a space where all voices are represented and provided with opportunities.
“We have to work against discrimination in all ways, shapes and forms everywhere in the world. That also includes racial discrimination, which is still a very big part, unfortunately, of football around the world,” he said. “With women’s football, you have to lead by example.”