Score it a big win for women’s soccer at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The Olympic women’s soccer tournament will be bigger than the men’s edition for the first time in 2028, the International Olympic Committee decided Wednesday, with 16 teams for women and now just 12 for men.
The IOC said the reason for the change was the rapidly growing popularity of women’s team sports, especially in the United States, and that change in the competition format reflected that rapid growth.
“We wanted to do something to reflect that growth and equally with the United States being the home of the highest level of popularity of women’s football,” IOC sports director Kit McConnell told a press conference.
He said the IOC had discussed the issue with both LA Games organizers and world soccer’s governing body Fifa before going through with the changes.
The IOC decision flipped the gender imbalance at the Paris Olympics last year when it was 16 men’s teams and 12 in the women’s tournament. It has been unequal since women’s soccer debuted at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics with just eight teams.
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The online board meeting Wednesday was co-chaired in Lausanne for the first time by Kirsty Coventry as president-elect since her win last month. In June she will formally replace her mentor Thomas Bach and become the IOC’s first female leader in its 131-year history.
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