Banyana expected to gain as Fifa announces increase in women's football teams for LA28 Olympics

BANYANA Banyana are set to receive a boost with regards to Olympic qualifications as the number of African representatives of women’s national football teams at the Olympics is expected to increase from the usual two in the Los Angeles 2028 Games.

That is after the Federation of International Football Association (Fifa) and the International Olympics Committee on Thursday announced a historic agreement to increase women’s football teams to 16 as from the next Olympics to be held in the United States in three years time.

“Fifa is pleased with the decision taken by the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to approve a proposal for 16 women’s and 12 men’s teams to participate in the Olympic Football Tournaments at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games (LA28) – a major milestone for the women’s game and a powerful endorsement of women’s sport,” reads a Fifa statement.

“Fifa has always believed in the power of women’s football and today’s decision by the IOC Executive Board is a positive step,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino in the statement. 

“Our vision is clear: we are investing in and expanding opportunities for women’s football at every level. More teams on the Olympic stage means more role models, more inspiration and more impact.

“This development reflects our shared understanding that women’s football deserves greater representation and visibility at the Olympic Games. We thank the IOC for the fruitful discussions that will make LA28 a groundbreaking event, and we will continue to work with our partners to incorporate futsal and beach soccer into the Olympic programme.”

Fifa has been calling on the increase in women’s teams at the Olympics for a number of years now. In fact even ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

According to Fifa, their advocating for the increase in women’s teams is in line with Goal 7 of their (Fifa’s) Strategic Objectives for the Global Game 2023-2027.

Fifa themselves walked the talk with the 2023 Women’s World Cup when they increased the number of teams from 24 to 32.

The IOC reported on the olympics.com website that at LA28, for the first time in history, all team sports will have at least the same number of women’s teams as men’s teams, with water polo adding two women’s teams, making it now 12 women’s to match the already 12 men’s teams.

“Gender equality was a key consideration when deciding on the athlete quota and the number of events,” says the statement on Olympics.com.

“In the initial sports programme, with 10,500 athletes, the number of female athletes is 5,333 and the number of male athletes 5,167. The additional sports add 322 female athletes and 376 male athletes. In addition, six mixed events were added to the event programme. Out of 351 events, there are 161 women’s events, 165 men’s events and 25 mixed events.”

The change in continental representatives was not specified on the statement but, Africa has been having only two women’s national teams at the Olympics, with Banyana Banyana - the reigning African champions - missing the last two editions (Tokyo2020 and Paris2024).

South America has also been having two representatives whilst Europe enjoyed a bigger share with three teams.

Efforts to get the South African Football Association’s (Safa) comment on this failed as the CEO Lydia Monyepao’s cellphone was on voicemail and she did not respond to Whatsapp messages sent to her by Independent Newspapers.