A French advertisement for the FIFA Women’s World Cup has gone viral, revealing deep truths about widespread misogyny in women’s sport.
The two-minute ad was launched two weeks ago by Orange, a French telecommunications company, and has received significant praise on social media.
It begins with a compilation of what seems to be highlights of the men’s national soccer team, Les Bleus, along with passionate commentary and cheers from the crowd.
Halfway through the video, a message appears on screen.
“Only Les Bleus give us these emotions,” it reads.
“But it is not them that you have just seen.”
The next half of the video shows how online video editing manipulated the highlights reel to look like players from the men’s national team, when in fact, the real footage came from the women’s national team, Les Bleues.
The ad intended to prove that “women’s football is as technical as men’s football”, the company wrote in the caption of their ad on YouTube.
“At Orange, when we support Les Bleus, we support Les Bleues,” the final message of the video reads.
The ad has well over four million views on YouTube and hundreds of thousands’ more on other social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
There remains a major prejudice against professional women’s sport, according to experts at Deakin University.
In Australia, coverage of women’s sport makes up just 10 per cent of total sports coverage. Worldwide, only 4 per cent of sports coverage is women’s sport.
Research from Deakin University shows there is significant interest – more than half of Australians – in watching women’s sport, if it was more available.
Last year, a study by market research company YouGov and Foxtel revealed nearly 70 per cent of Australians watch more women’s sport than they did before 2020.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup is set to be one of the biggest sporting events Australia has hosted since the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The opening match between Australia and Ireland will be played at Stadium Australia in Sydney on Thursday at 8pm AEST.