FIFAWWC 2023 🇪🇸v🇨🇭 RO16 🇯🇵v🇸🇪 Quarterfinal 🇪🇸v🇸🇪 Semifinal How good was this World Cup? I did not initially imagine a sport like football/soccer would capture the hearts and minds of two nations, sometimes it’s great to be proven wrong. I had the privilege of team leading media operations on the pitch for our playoff matches at Eden Park, working with our pitch maintenance staff, our photographers, and occasionally shifting a goal 🥅, spending the downtime with front-row seats, not a bad way to round it off! How amazing were our matches that we got at Eden Park this year? It was my first time ever seeing Sweden and Switzerland on the world stage. Japan, as always, has the best fans, arigatou 🙌🏼🇯🇵! Last but not least, our eventual World Cup winners, the young guns, Spain 🇪🇸. Spain had very gracious and communicative staff and there was a hunger to win this World Cup with every match they played, going into their last four games of the tournaments as perceived underdogs, what a story this World Cup has written! There are obvious key work ons that have arisen from the tournament, fans, media, volunteers, staff (both local and international) have a tendency to sexualise female athletes to justify interest, which is not on. It’s not to say it doesn’t happen with our men’s teams such as the All Blacks, but the scale of the comments was way out of proportion. I hope this is just short-term due to the albeit positive skyrocket in interest in women’s sports, I had hoped the black ferns of 2022 had taught us women’s sports can be more interesting than men’s based on merit alone, the proof in the pudding in this is the two eden park games, All Blacks vs Ireland 🇮🇪 and the Black Ferns semifinal vs France 🇫🇷 to see women’s sport, and the perceived imperfections it has in fact make for a more interesting game. Also we have not seen enough action on our national cricket, rugby, and football bodies to continue growing their respective games. Even after a World Cup in each sport. To grow the grassroots requires more action from the top, and we’re not seeing statistics to justify the national benefit to women’s sport, this is where you’ve got to congratulate the effort of Football Australia, and hope our country follows suits. We can only go up from here, I’m looking forward to the next major tournament (WXV?) on Aotearoa’s shores. Huge effort from everyone involved, the staff, volunteers, media, fans, the players and their management, aroha to you all! 🖤 Huge mana from friends Carlos Wilkie Caren Steenkamp and Ruth Martin for getting back on the tools ⚒️ Up the Football Ferns 🇳🇿🇳🇿
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