PAThe one thing people watch the World Cup for is football – so cameramen have been told to stop zooming in on ‘hot women’ in the crowds.
An anti-discrimination group called Fare Network have been working with FIFA to monitor the matches throughout the tournament in Russia.
In their assessments, the group noticed that the cameramen had a tendency to choose attractive women in the crowds to zoom in on.
Fare Network have said that sexism is a huge problem at the tournament, with more than 30 instances noted.
According to the BBC, the head of diversity at FIFA, Federico Addiechi, has said that FIFA needed assistance in preventing sexism at the World Cup.
In attempts to start tackling the issue, broadcasters have been asked to tell their cameramen to stop focusing their shots onto attractive female football fans.
Addiechi has stated that making this an official FIFA policy is something the association will consider.
PAHe said:
This is one of the activities we definitely will have in future – it’s a normal evolution.
We have done it on a case-by-case basis when some cases arose and they were pretty evident.
We’ve done it with individual broadcasters. We’ve done it with our host broadcast services.
As well as cameramen turning their lenses to attractive women, numerous cases of female broadcasters at the tournament being kissed or harassed on camera have also been reported.
The Independent report that Addiechi was asked what Fifa could do to stop these kinds of situations, and he explained that FIFA had been working with Russian police to identify the fans who had harassed broadcasters.
Addiechi said that when appropriate, the fans in question had their FAN-IDs removed, the document that grants access to the stadiums, and were forced to leave the country.
One woman had her breast touched on camera while she was trying to present, while another woman was grabbed and kissed by World Cup fans live on air.
According to The Sun, the man who touched the presenter’s breast claimed the touch was an accident.
He said:
I thought I put my hands on her shoulders, but apparently I missed a little and touched her chest with my left hand.
I would not have believed it myself, but having looked at the video I realise that it looked ambiguous from the side.
Reuters report that Fare Network head Piara Power believes that for every documented case of sexism at the 2018 World Cup, there are even more undocumented cases.
He explained:
It’s been a largely positive experience and there haven’t been a great deal of incidents of the type we expected.
The only thing we have really flagged up which has been significant has been the level of sexism which has been encountered by some women, often Russian women who have been confronted by fans
We have identified 30 cases where we can point to fans involved in acts of sexism on the streets – that’s clearly an underestimate, the real figure is probably that times 10.
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.