FIFA president Gianni Infantino inflamed a monthslong squabble over Women's World Cup television rights Monday with a calculated — but quite ridiculous — threat: If European broadcasters continue to offer relatively meager fees for the 2023 tournament, Infantino said, it might not be televised in Europe's biggest markets at all.
Infantino, speaking at a World Trade Organization event and on his Instagram page, reiterated a stance that he first took last October. FIFA, he said then, had been rejecting offers that were tiny fractions of men's World Cup rights fees — offers that Infantino deemed unacceptable “because we know that the viewing figures for these broadcasters in some big footballing countries for the men’s World Cup or for the Women’s World Cup are actually very similar.