the 2023 fifa women’s world cup: politics, representation, and management

This book offers a critical examination of the 2023 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Women’s World Cup, being held in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Drawing on perspectives from sociology, history, political science, and management, it sheds new light on the development of women’s soccer and on women’s sport more broadly.

This book examines the politics of the build-up to the tournament, including the bidding process, as well as how the tournament has been represented in the media, the governance structures of the tournament itself, and policy proposals designed to leave an enduring legacy for women and girls in sport. The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is the first Women’s World Cup to be held in the Southern Hemisphere and the first to be held with an expanded 32-team format. This book shows why the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup represents a unique opportunity to enhance our understanding of women’s football, gender-oriented sport development initiatives and strategies, national sport policy and programming, and the management of international sporting events.

This book is fascinating reading for any student, researcher, or practitioner with an interest in sport development, sport management, sport policy, sport sociology, event management, gender studies, political science, or the relationship between sport and wider society.

Adam Beissel is Associate Professor of Sport Leadership & Management at Miami University, USA. Adam’s research and scholarship interrogates the political economy of sport mega-events and the geopolitics of sport. In addition to his research involving the 2023 Women’s World Cup, he’s currently working on a research project exploring the geopolitics of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup joint hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

Twitter: @extrabeisshit

Verity Postlethwaite is Doctoral Prize Fellow at Loughborough University, UK and Research Associate in the Japan Research Centre at SOAS. Verity’s main interests focus on how sport events and other cultural entities have been used in local, national, and international contexts to influence the governing of society, in particular around notions of inclusivity. Her recent research focuses on important aspects of gender, sustainability, and disability.

Twitter: @verity_pos

Andrew Grainger is Senior Lecturer in the sociology of sport and sport development in the School of Sport, Exercise and Nutrition at Massey University, New Zealand. Andy’s research and teaching focuses primarily on the globalisation of sport and the impact of neoliberal ideology and practices on local physical cultural meanings and practices. His current research explores the intersections of sport policy, sport diplomacy, and women’s football in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Twitter: @Andy_D_Grainger

Julie E. Brice is Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University Fullerton, USA. Julie’s research and scholarship focuses on the socio-cultural and political forces that impact women’s experiences of their moving bodies and across women’s sports, more broadly. This includes explorations into the activewear phenomenon and women’s fitness, New Zealand women’s experiences of wellbeing and sport, and promotional messaging of the USWNT.

Twitter: @jubrice5