I was coincidentally in the Brazil when news broke on April 29 that the USA was withdrawing its bid to co-host the 2027 Women’s World Cup with Mexico. That left the joint Belgium-Netherlands-Germany bid as Brazil’s only competitor in Friday’s vote (Thursday evening in the U.S.) by FIFA’s 211 member nations.
On that very Monday when it became a two-bid race, our first full day of vacation, we headed to a Campeonato Brasileiro Feminino game between two of Brazil’s most heralded soccer clubs.
Flamengo is famously Brazil’s most popular club, boasting some 40 million fans. Its history invokes names like Zizinho, Gérson and Zico. More recently, it sold Vinícius Júnior to Real Madrid for $50 million when he was 18 years old.
After some hard times, Flamengo has never been wealthier, according to Forbes. The club is run by “some of the wealthiest men businessmen of Brazil,” wrote The Financial Times, including its president, former Petrobras executive Rodolfo Landim.
Adidas pays Flamengo $12 million annually to have its logos on the scarlet-black hooped jerseys, replicas of which are the most frequently seen garb on Rio streets. The Rubro-Negro is so popular nationwide that Germany used identically designed uniforms for the 2014 World Cup to endear itself to the host country’s fans.
A Flamengo men’s game would have been a subway ride to Maracana, but the glorified club has its women’s team host Santos at 3 p.m. The Uber took us to Governor’s Island (Ilha do Governador), passed Rio’s GIG Airport, and dropped us off at the Estádio Luso-Brasileiro.
The stadium, now used mainly by fourth division Portuguesa Carioca, opened in 1961 as a horse track, became a soccer stadium in 1965. Its several renovations included expanding to a capacity of 21,000 seats, and more recently a down-sizing to 6,000, the rubble from which remains piled up behind east-side sideline.
I count fewer than 100 people in the stands. They include a Flamengo youth team whose singing provides a marvelous complement to the soccer, which lives up to every expectation of the Brazilian style: smooth individual skill and rhythmical team play. They sing a special song for Cristiane, who played in five World Cups and scored 96 goals in 153 games for Brazil. The 39-year-old scored twice in the 7-0 rout over Santos.
We leave having enjoyed the soccer but puzzled at the underwhelming staging of top-flight women’s soccer by a nation bidding to host the Women’s World Cup. Can there be a more inconvenient time for fans? And it was no aberration. Even the game two weeks later against its archrival, Fluminense, was played on a Monday afternoon.
Rio remains a city with newsstands on nearly each city block and several sports dailies, but the lack of media coverage of the women’s game fell well under even my low expectations. There was none to be found. Placer, the iconic Brazilian soccer magazine, is still in print, but its two special editions available covered only men. On its web site, you won’t find women’s soccer scrolling down its “leagues” heading.
On Day 8 of our Brazil stage, FIFA released its bid evaluations and rated Brazil’s higher than the BNG bid. Having found no enthusiasm for women’s soccer beyond the small gathering at Estádio Luso-Brasileiro, that surprised. For sure, I didn’t consider my impressions during such sort of a stay reliable. So I reached out to journalists Júlia Belas Trindade and Renata Mendonca.
Belas Trindade writes for publications including the in-depth Brazilian women’s sports site Dibradoras, Goal Brasil and The Guardian. She is also researching the media representation of women soccer players in Brazil. Mendonca has covered women’s soccer since 2015. She’s a co-founder of Dibradoras and a TV Globo commentator.
On Brazilian media coverage of women’s soccer:
Belas Trindade: “We have a bit more women’s football coverage on the networks and media groups that broadcast it — for example, Globo TV and their website — but not necessarily in newspapers, magazines or such. Placar partnered up with an independent women’s football website called Fut das Minas last year to cover the 2023 Women’s World Cup, but at the same time, their magazine cover on the month before the FIFA Women’s World Cup was an interview with Casemiro of Manchester United.”
The 2023 Women’s World Cups got major mainstream coverage she said, “But they went back to their regular men’s football coverage once the tournament was over. Editors and senior journalists often don’t see value in women’s football, or don’t think it’s worth dedicating money towards it. It’s slowly changing, but it’s still really bad overall. On the other hand, the gap for information is filled by the independent media, that dedicates a lot of time and work to promote the women’s game.”
Mendonca: “Media coverage of women’s football has changed a lot in the past 10 years. Just to give you an example. In 2015, Brazil was playing the Women’s World Cup in Canada and it was hard to find any information about the tournament in newspapers, they would rarely talk about it on TV and most of the people didn’t even know it was happening.
“Then in 2019, a lot of things started to change. TV Globo (Latin America’s biggest TV network) broadcast the Women’s World Cup for the first time and set many TV audience records. Actually, the world TV audience record for a women’s World Cup match belongs to Brazil (vs. France, round of 16 of the 2019 World Cup). There was more people watching the final here in Brazil then there were in the USA, a country that was involved in the final.
“So this showed that was a lot of interest in people to watch and follow women’s football. And this helped media coverage to change. Nowadays you won’t see women’s football news everyday in the main websites or TV shows, but it is rare to spend a whole week without seeing something about the women’s league or the women’s team in the media. Maybe not in the newspapers, because their sports coverage in general is very limited nowadays, but on the big websites (UOL Esporte, Ge.globo …) or the big broadcasters (Sportv, Globo, ESPN …) you will find it.
“Also, the Brazilian women’s league is now broadcast by Globo/Sportv and Canal GOAT (a YouTube channel). In 2015, it would be impossible to watch a women’s league match on TV. Not even Brazil’s women’s matches — friendlies or tournaments like Copa America — were on TV.”
How much should I read into the sparse turnout at the Flamengo-Santos game I attended and the club’s choice of kickoff timing?
Belas Trindade: “It is so representative, and quite sad that a game between two huge clubs was scheduled for this slot. The national championship has been criticized over and over again for kickoff times and broadcast issues. Now there are broadcasts for every game in every round … Attendance issues are both due to scheduling and the clubs. One example was the Minas Gerais derby between Atlético-MG and Cruzeiro. The game was hosted by Atlético-MG at a ground that didn’t have the proper permits to receive the public, so there was no one attending. Other clubs play games far away from their usual grounds, even in different cities, which makes it even harder for fans to travel.
“Teams like Corinthians, for example, have bigger crowds, but this is not the norm, it’s the exception. I don’t have an average attendance, but I know that it only picks up when clubs – mainly Corinthians – play on their main grounds. But that only happens in important games, in the final stages or whenever there’s a derby.”
Mendonca: “One of the main problems with women’s football in Brazil is that those who should care more about the product usually don’t do much in order to sell it. A lot of these big clubs in Brazil don’t see women’s football as a product, as something profitable. They treat it like an obligation. They have women’s teams because it is the rule they need to follow in order to compete in the men’s tournaments (Série A and Libertadores).
“Flamengo is the best example. It’s the biggest club in Brazil in terms of number of fans (40 million). They have a women’s team since 2013. They won the Brazilian league in 2016, but they never ever even thought about taking the women’s team to play at Maracana, where the men’s team play. They signed Cristiane, one of the biggest names of women’s football in the world, and still they make her play at stadium with terrible conditions and they never make efforts to have more fans there — like posting more on Flamengo social media to call fans for the game, publicizing the women’s team more frequently on their website and YouTube channel or Instagram. So it is a big club, with 40 million fans and most of these fans don’t even know that Flamengo has a women’s team.
“A positive example in Brazil is Corinthians. This is a club with 30 million fans. They started the women’s team in 2016 and since then they created a great plan to be a reference in the women’s game in Brazil. They started playing at Parque Sao Jorge, a small stadium. But gradually they started having the women to play at Neo Quimica Arena, the main stadium where the men’s team plays. In 2018, their first game there was free entrance with only a few hundred people there to watch the women’s team.
“But in the past three years many attendance records were broken by them. Last year, 42,000 people were at Neo Quimica Arena for the Brazilian league final and saw Corinthians winning the trophy for the fifth time. This season, they’ve been playing all their main games in the league at Neo Quimica, with good attendance as well. So it is an example of a big club that actually worked hard in order to be successful at this business. The other clubs like to give excuses instead of working hard. They expect return without any investment or any work at all.”
What’s girls youth soccer like in Brazil? Is it widely available for girls who want to play?
Mendonca: “It’s still something incipient here. The first girls national tournaments for youth categories in Brazil started in 2019. Now we have good competitions for under-17 and under-20. But younger girls (like 11, 12, 13) who want to play football in Brazil still find a lot of difficulties, first because there are only a few clubs that offer these categories, second because there aren’t many tournaments for them to play (so sometimes they have to play with the boys in boys’ tournaments).
“The CBF (Brazilian football confederation) created another category in the national team last year, the under-15s, but they still haven’t played any tournaments.
“There is a lot of talent in Brazil, but many of these talented girls sometimes have to leave the country in order to play football at a young age. That was what happened, for example, with Catarina Macario, who went to the USA when she was 11 because she couldn’t find a female club to play and develop her football. Now she plays for the U.S. women’s national team. Sometimes when the girl is very good, a men’s club accepts her to train with the boys. It also was the case of Giovanna Waksman, who played for Botafogo here with the boys and now had an opportunity to go to the U.S. and play for FC Florida.
“Only the states of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul have more opportunities for young girls to start playing football at a young age. In other places like Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, Bahia, etc, it is very hard for a young girl to find a club to play.
How important to the future support of girls and women’s soccer in Brazil (and perhaps all of South America) do you think it is that Brazil host the 2027 Women’s World Cup?
Mendonca: “I think it’s not only important, it’s fundamental for the future of women’s football in South America to have this edition of FIFA Women’s World Cup here. That is because it is a continent where the resistance to women’s football development is still huge. And when we compare to what’s been happening in Europe in the past 10 years, South America is really in a different, and worse, stage.
“Most of the people that are in charge of football clubs, confederations and federations here don’t see women’s football as something profitable. In the past 10 years, they did create more tournaments and improved the conditions of the women’s game in the continent, but mainly because this was a demand from FIFA. Most of the clubs in Brazil, for example, they only have women’s teams because they have to — it’s the rule in order to be able to compete in the men’s league, Série A. Hosting a World Cup in Brazil will be an opportunity to show them that this is a business, that if they do work for that, if they invest in women’s football and if they plan to be successful it is possible to make good money.
“Also, it would be a chance for a lot of girls to watch women’s football in the big arenas and to be inspired by them, so they will grow up acknowledging that football is a game for girls too.
“It would bring more investments to the women’s game, more opportunities for girls to play, and hopefully it would finally change people’s mind towards women’s football.
“I saw the transformation the World Cup brought to Australia, a country where football was not among the most popular sports. Here, people are already passionate about football. They just don’t know the women’s game as much as they know the men’s game. And hosting a World Cup here can make this truly the ‘nation of football’ instead of ‘the nation of male football’ as it is today.
Belas Trindade: “Look, some people say that Brazil does not deserve to host the World Cup because it hasn’t done enough for the women’s game, and I understand where that comes from. Brazil still treats the women’s game too poorly.
“However, the growth in visibility and support towards the women’s game has driven change and inspired so many women and girls to play, even if not professionally, but to take football and enjoy it. Not even just playing, but becoming journalists, working in other areas involved in sports, or even just watching as friends. It may not be the jump start we hope for the women’s game in Brazil, but it’ll bring a lot of scrutiny and attention.
“The women’s game needs to be more visible in Brazil, and the World Cup would definitely help with that. Also, for women’s football fans, it’ll be amazing. Brazilians love football. In Australia, before every game, we had parties with Brazilian music, walks to the stadium with bands, people dressed up as mascots. That was on the other side of the world. Can you imagine how fun a World Cup would be at home? Also, I imagine a lot of fans from other parts of the world are dreaming of an excuse to travel to Brazil. Now it’s their chance!”
