Croatia's soccer fans celebrate in Nikolskaya street near the Kremlin as their team won the semifinal soccer match between Croatia and England during the 2018 soccer World Cup. Photo / AP
Croatia's soccer fans celebrate in Nikolskaya street near the Kremlin as their team won the semifinal soccer match between Croatia and England during the 2018 soccer World Cup. Photo / AP
FIFA is cracking down on broadcasters targeting "hot women" at World Cup matches in a push to tackle sexism in football.
It is common practice for broadcasters to pick attractive female fans from the crowd and zoom in on them during cutaways.
Speaking before England's semi-final loss to Croatia, FIFAdiversity boss Federico Addiechi called out the unacceptable behaviour.
"(FIFA will) take action against things that are wrong," he said.
"We've done it with individual broadcasters. We've done it with our host broadcast services."
When Addiechi was asked if the crackdown on targeting women would become FIFA policy he said that while it was not yet part of a "proactive campaign" it would definitely be a focus area.
"This is one of the activities that we definitely will have in the future — it's a normal evolution," he said.
Before the tournament began there were concerns that the biggest issues for Russia 2018 would be homophobia and racism but sexism has proven to be the most prevalent problem.
England soccer fans react after England national soccer team lost the semifinal match between Croatia and England at the 2018 soccer World Cup. Photo / AP
Anti-discrimination group Fare Network has been working to monitor discriminatory behaviour around World Cup games.
According to the group's executive director Piara Powar, they have "documented more than 30 cases" of women, mainly Russians, being "accosted in the streets" by male fans.
Though Mr Powar added that the real number of incidents is likely 10 times higher.
There have also been multiple cases of female reporters being groped and kissed by male fans during live broadcasts.
Despite widespread criticism of sexism in sport media, and initiatives to counter sexualised images of women sport fans, the stereotype of the sexy supporter continues to flourish.
For women fans who don't look this way, or choose not to, the cost is media invisibility.
If you go to Google and type in the words "World Cup" and "women fans" what comes up is images of beautiful women dressed in their nations colours and usually wearing short shorts or crop tops.
Conversely, if you change "women" to "male" in the search you get a much different picture. The only scantily clad bodies on show are covered in colourful body paint.
The criteria for being a male sport fan in the online domain appear to have little to do with physical attractiveness.
FIFA's warning to broadcasters comes ahead of the World Cup final between France and Croatia.
