Committee for Women's Football and the FIFA Women's World Cup

By Worawi Makudi
Chairman of the Committee for Women's Football and the FIFA Women's World Cup

It is with great pleasure that we recognise the tremendous strides women's football has made in recent years. Having long since wiped out any misconceptions of football being predominantly a men's sport, today football proudly counts over 30 million female players worldwide.

With the launch of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in 2008 and the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup (formerly U-19) now complementing the Women's Olympic Football Tournament and FIFA Women's World Cup on the new women's coordinated international match calendar, the competitive allure and technical quality of the women's game is indisputably higher than ever. Citing such examples as the 90,000+ people at the Final of the FIFA Women's World Cup in 1999, fans worldwide have enthusiastically and emphatically voiced their support for women's football by flocking to FIFA events in record-setting numbers.

However, FIFA is determined not to rest on past success, but rather is committed to continue pushing forward as there still remains much work to be done in the development of women's football across the globe.

Whereas the continual growth of female participation in the sport is very encouraging, we must nevertheless continue to proactively promote the evolution of the women's game in a positive manner. One of our most important, but perhaps less well-known objectives, is to help develop and initiate women's programmes in countries that don't yet have any. Expanding on this concept, FIFA acknowledges its need and responsibility to nurture and support administrators and coaches of national associations that do have women's programmes, and to help them build on the future by providing manageable and quantifiable milestones for associations to aspire to.

There is much to be proud of and much work to do as well. Above all, it is the duty of FIFA and all of our football family to do everything in its power to promote a world of social equality where every woman has an opportunity to enjoy playing football, as the beautiful game is meant for one and all.