At the Women’s World Cup, the playing field begins to level

What’s behind the growing play parity in women’s football, and how does pay parity make a difference?

Soccer Football - FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 - Group F - Jamaica v Brazil - Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, Melbourne, Australia - August 2, 2023 Brazil's Debinha in action
Brazil and Jamaica were both in Group F at the start of the Women's World Cup. The South Americans were ranked eighth in the world, but number 43 Jamaica advanced into the final 16, and Brazil went home after the group stages [Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Reuters]

Top 10 women’s football teams the USA, Canada, Germany and Brazil were all eliminated from the 2023 Women’s World Cup before the quarter-finals, and underdogs Jamaica and Morocco won big early on. In a landmark deal in February 2022, the US women’s team finally received pay parity after a years-long battle with the US Soccer Federation. In contrast, a Jamaican team member’s mother had to start a GoFundMe campaign for the Raggae Girlz to be able to prepare for this year’s World Cup. Now the big questions are: What’s behind these wins and losses, and does funding make a difference?

In this episode: 

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Fahrinisa Campana with Amy Waters and our host Malika Bilal. Khaled Soltan and Zaina Badr fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

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Source: Al Jazeera