NZ Football boss backs Kiwi fans to show up
New Zealand Football boss Andrew Pragnell is confident the country will do its part to live up to the expectations set by the trans-tasman bid to host the 2023 Fifa Women’s World Cup if it is successful.
Fifa revealed on Wednesday that the joint bid between NZ and Australia had received top marks after the technical evaluation phase, earning an average overall score of 4.1 out of 5 to Japan’s 3.9 and Colombia’s 2.8.
Football officials on both sides of the Tasman now enter a final two-week stretch ahead of the Fifa council vote on June 25 that will determine the host, hoping to come out on top in what is now clearly a two-horse race.
Strong commercial prospects were a crucial aspect of the Australia-new Zealand bid, with the evaluation report saying it ‘‘appear[ed] to present the most commercially favourable proposition’’.
The bid projects it can sell a record 1.5 million tickets – an average of 23,000 per match – and generate US$41M (NZ$6.3M) in revenue as a result. It also projects receiving US$6.6M (NZ$10.1M) in sponsorship and has been allocated approximately
US$75 mn (NZ$114.8M) in central and local government funding, including approximately US$11M (NZ$16.8M) in New Zealand.
The largest home crowd New Zealand’s senior women’s team, the Football Ferns, have ever attracted was when 7236 spectators that watched them lose to Japan in Wellington in 2018.
Fans did turn out when the country last hosted a Fifa women’s event – the inaugural Under-17 Women’s World Cup in 2008 – with 13,123 attending the tournament opener between New Zealand and Canada and 16,162 watching the final, where North Korea beat the United States in extra time.
Pragnell said he was confident Kiwis would come to the party in the event of a successful bid.
‘‘From our experiences, New
Zealanders have an understanding that this will be putting us truly on the global stage.
‘‘The event would obviously bring with it a huge number of international tourists, but I think it’s the type of event where when we know we’re being watched by the world, we’ll turn out in numbers to put on a strong performance. I’m confident we’ll attract Kiwis as well as a significant international audience.’’
Pragnell said an announcement on the future of Football Ferns coach Tom Sermanni was expected ahead of the June 25 vote.
Sermanni’s contract is set to expire at the end of August, after the original dates for the Tokyo Olympics, which were postponed to 2021 in March due to the Covid19 pandemic.