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AIPROPX ReportCBS Sports · 2h ago
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman highlights women's soccer amid uncertainty over FIFA presidency
NEW YORK – NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said the league "wholeheartedly" supports Concacaf's rejection of FIFA president Gianni Infantino's failed proposal to privatize the World Cup and plans to offer her expertise as U.S. Soccer mulls its stance on the future of FIFA's leadership.
Infantino announced plans to launch a subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) last week, which would see FIFA bundle the men's and women's World Cups and Club World Cups and sell around 20% to private investors for roughly $4 billion. The main backer of the proposal was Thrive Eternal, a holding company led by venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, whose brother Jared is the son-in-law of U.S. president Donald Trump. Swift opposition from UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC ensured Infantino would abandon FFE within days, but he now faces immense pressure that has seen some call for his resignation and others mull running against him in March's presidential elections.
"I'll start by saying that we wholeheartedly support the position that U.S. Soccer and Concacaf took as it relates to not being supportive of that proposal and are pleased that it was withdrawn," Berman said during a press conference on Wednesday.
U.S. Soccer said last week that it stood with Concacaf as it rejected FFE, though it is currently unclear what the federation's stance would be on the future of the FIFA presidency. CEO J.T. Batson said Tuesday that it will be a topic of conversation at U.S. Soccer's board meeting in September , two months before the deadline for potential candidates to submit their interest in running for FIFA president. Concacaf president Victor Montagliani is reportedly mulling a bid but has yet to formalize plans.
Berman is a member of U.S. Soccer's board and, like Batson, is looking forward to September's discussions.
"As it relates to future conversations about the future of FIFA and leadership," Berman said. "I am eager to have discussions with our fellow board members, to listen and learn and better understand the optionality that might exist and the process, and obviously watching closely as all the news unfolds."
Berman's priorities for FIFA leadership, regardless of who is at the helm, center around women's soccer, an oft-overlooked topic at the highest levels of the game. The last several years have been defined by further professional development around the world – Infantino oversaw the expansion of the Women's World Cup from 24 teams to 32 in the 2023 tournament, which proved to be a welcome change. Montagliani, meanwhile, has been in charge at Concacaf as they launched the W Champions Cup, the inaugural edition of which was won by the NWSL's Gotham FC in 2025.
Resources are often limited in different parts of the world, where the women's game has been actively de-prioritized. That was likely to be the case if Infantino's privatization proposal went through -- the 25-page sales deck for FFE did not include any plans for the Women's World Cup or other women's soccer competitions.
Berman's chief area of focus, though, is around the international match calendar, which has been fleshed out through 2029.
"I think as a general matter, the things that we care about as a league is a balanced perspective as it relates to the relationship between club and country." she said. "That's something we've talked about in the past, so that would be sort of first. I think second, an understanding of what priorities and investment is being made in the women's game in particular. The next 12 to 18 months is a critical period of time for us, as we understand and have been told that the women's international match calendar for the next cycle is going to be determined, and what the consultation process is around that is important to us and what role we can play in advocating for the appropriate symbiotic relationship between club and country. We very much understand the need to work with the ecosystem and want to make sure that, as the place where we are responsible for the daily training environment of these players, that there's appropriate allocation of weekends to be able to grow the business."
Berman described the calendar as "probably our most important and active workstream" because it is foundational to the NWSL's broadcast agreements and therefore essential to how the growing league presents itself to fans new and old. The NWSL faces several challenges on an annual basis as it builds out the schedule, though, including working around international breaks. Next season's calendar will see the league pause completely during the Women's World Cup in Brazil, where a large chunk of the NWSL's player pool expects to be participating with their national teams. They will instead pivot to increasing brand awareness, as they did with a Summer of Soccer campaign during the men's World Cup that Berman called a success.
"On Instagram we saw almost 300% growth compared to prior years in our monthly average this summer around the men's World Cup and similarly 100% growth on YouTube, two priority platforms for us for the future of fandom," Berman said. "We had almost 40 million social impressions over the course of the campaign during the Summer of Soccer tour on NWSL channels with the hashtag #NWSLonTour. We had some record attendance that I'd like to share. The average match has drawn 11,174 fans year to date. It's the second-highest average attendance in league history with half of our season left to play, and that's behind only 2024, where we had 11,249 so we're we're close to beating that and we hope we'll have a strong second half of the season where we can celebrate this being our highest attended year on an average basis … From a viewership perspective, the NWSL came out of the break directly into the World Cup knockout rounds, which posed both an opportunity and some challenges. We're really proud that week 13 – which was, again, our first week back – was the No. 1 linear week of 2026."
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