Contextualising and chronicling the gender equality provisions in FIFA’s 2016 governance reforms: Situating the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023

This chapter situates the 2023 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women's World Cup by contextualising and chronicling the gender equality statutory amendments passed at FIFA's Congress in February 2016. Co-author Moya Dodd, former member of Australia's women's national football team, was one of the first women on FIFA's Executive Committee and became “the driving force in the recent push for women within FIFA”. Dodd draws upon her first-hand experiences directing these reforms as chair of FIFA's Women's Football Taskforce, which drafted FIFA's Women's Football: 10 Key Development Principles. This chapter contextualises the FIFAGate crisis, introduces the Women's Football Taskforce proposals reflected in the 2016 FIFA Reform Report, and explains FIFA's passage of its gender equality statutory amendments. In so doing, the authors explain the process by which progress towards gender equality was, and can be, advanced within FIFA.