Women Should ‘Pick The Right Fights’ – Fifa President Infantino | Football/Soccer

Infantino said the success of the Women's World Cup had silenced critics who questioned expanding the tournament to 32 nations.

Concerns were raised that increasing the number of teams from 24 would lead to more one-sided games in Australia and New Zealand.

However, Nigeria, South Africa, Jamaica and Morocco - nations ranked no higher than 40th in the world - advanced past the group stage.

"Fifa was right," added Infantino.

"We invested one billion US dollars in developing the game all over the world and the women's game was specifically targeted," he added.

"We did that in spite of Covid, which impacted us all. Women's football remained alive even in the most difficult of times. We decided to increase the number of teams at the World Cup to 32.

"I remember when we decided to do [it] that the usual critics, which are less and less, were saying it's not going to work and the level is too different.

"[They said] there would be 15-0 scores, and it will be bad for women's football.

"As it happens quite often in the last years, Fifa was right once more. We had eight debutants. We had many countries around the world who thought suddenly they had a chance to participate."