Denmark’s Euro 2024 squad have refused a pay rise to ensure the women’s team receive equal pay.

A new four-year agreement has been reached with the Danish Football Association that will see both male and female national team players receive the same fee for representing their country.

To enable this the men’s team accepted a reduction in insurance coverage as well as refusing a pay increase, global players’ union, FIFPRO, said.

“The men’s team chose not to demand any changes in the conditions in their new agreement,” Michael Sahl Hansen, director of the Danish players’ union, Spillerforeningen, said in a statement published by FIFPRO.

“It’s an extraordinary step to help improve the conditions of the women’s national teams. So, instead of looking for better conditions for themselves, the players thought about supporting the women’s team.”

Senior players were consulted before a deal was struck that will come into effect following this summer’s tournament in Germany and run until 2028.

“When we presented the plan to the negotiations team, which consisted of Andreas Christensen, Thomas Delaney, Christian Eriksen, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Simon Kjaer and Kasper Schmeichel, they were very happy,” Sahl Hansen said.

“This was what they wanted: it showed that…

Denmark international Rikke Sevecke, formerly of Everton and Portland Thorns, has announced her retirement from football due to a heart condition.

Sevecke, 27, explained in a social media post that medical tests have uncovered the condition which has forced her to curtail her top-level career prematurely.

The central defender was capped 54 times by the Denmark international team and participated in last year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Sevecke made 52 appearances across three seasons at Everton in the Women’s Super League before joining NWSL Portland Thorns in September.

The defender did not play for the Thorns, though, who announced that the option of extending her contract for the 2024 season would not be exercised.

A medical test carried out last year revealed a need for more thorough examinations which has resulted in Sevecke calling time on her career.

“I’m not sure how to find the right words,” Sevecke said in a statement on Friday.

“But as of now, I will no longer be running around doing what I’ve done my whole life, playing football.

“The past months I’ve had some tests done and I recently got the results back which says that I have a heart condition. This means that I’m not allowed to continue playing professional football and I’ve…

It was the moment all of Australia had been waiting for: their captain Sam Kerr was stepping onto the World Cup stage, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Kerr was primed to be the face of Australia’s World Cup. Instead, the Chelsea forward has been sidelined for three weeks by a calf injury. It has clouded Australia’s run to the quarter finals, forcing the Matildas to learn to play without their skipper.

Australia were already leading Denmark 2-0 when head coach Tony Gustavsson brought on Kerr for Hayley Raso in the 80th minute.

The sea of gold and green inside Stadium Australia cheered at the sight of their star player warming up on the sideline and, when Kerr eventually stepped on the pitch, almost all of the 75,784 fans in attendance greeted her with resounding joy. They were right behind her for the ten minutes she played.

“Oh, I absolutely loved it,” defender Alanna Kennedy said. “I think the crowd loved it, as well. The whole of Australia loved it. She’s the heart and soul of his team.”

Kerr is her side’s talisman when, but for Gustavsson, her return at this stage of the tournament could relieve some of the pressure on her.

20 @SamKerr1 | #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/1q7rzKeSVC

— FIFA Women’s World Cup (@FIFAWWC) August 7, 2023

“I think…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup gets under way in Australia and New Zealand on July 20, with the U.S. hoping to navigate an expanded 32-team tournament to become the first country to win football’s biggest prize three times in a row.

They are the favourites, but will the four-time winners actually pull off the ‘three-peat’? What of England, European champions but decimated by injuries to key players as they attempt to win the tournament for the first time? Will Germany bounce back from losing the final of the Euros to lift the game’s biggest prize?

How will the likes of France, Spain and Canada perform after their preparations have been disrupted by disputes with their federations over the past few months?

And can we expect any surprises from any of the eight countries — Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia — making their World Cup debuts?

Our expert writers give their verdicts on what they think will happen over the next five weeks.

---

Flo Lloyd-Hughes, women’s football reporter

Winner: Germany. This is a very open tournament and there are four or five teams that have a good chance of winning the title. Germany are often the masters of their own downfall, but given their disappointment at the Euros last summer and their…

Let’s start with a few fun facts. 

Asisat Oshoala has been African women’s footballer of the year five times. She has won the Africa Cup of Nations three times. She has two Golden Boots and two Golden Balls at international tournaments: two each at AFCON and the Under-20 World Cup. 

She was the top scorer in Spain in 2021-22 and last season, notched a personal-best 21 goals for Barcelona — accompanied by three assists, which was comfortably more than her team-mates.

In 2019, she became the first African woman to score in a Champions League final. Two years later she became the first African woman to win a Champions League title. A year after that, she became the first African woman to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or. 

We could go on. There will certainly be better players at this World Cup, but there won’t be many as exciting to watch, or indeed many with a more interesting career story, than Oshoala. 

Born in Ikorodu, a coastal city about an hour’s drive from the Nigerian capital Lagos, Oshoala wasn’t exactly encouraged to pursue her sporting dreams as a child. Her parents would frequently not give her any food if she disobeyed them and went to play football, considering it a waste of time. They wanted her to become a lawyer instead. 

But when she was…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup is almost here. It is the ninth iteration of the tournament and the biggest yet as, for the first time, 32 teams will compete for the trophy.

That means a new format with more matches and more players, as well as some new rules that have not been in operation before.

Here’s a primer ahead of the biggest women’s football tournament in history.

---

The basics

What is the Women’s World Cup?

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is an international tournament that pits the best national sides against one another every four years.

Where is it being held?

The tournament is being played in Australia and New Zealand.

It is the first Women’s World Cup to be hosted across two countries and the first World Cup (regardless of gender) to be hosted across two confederations — Australia are part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and New Zealand are part of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

When is it?

The first two games of the tournament — New Zealand vs Norway and Australia vs Republic of Ireland — will be played on July 20.

The group stage will conclude with the final two games in Group H a fortnight later on August 3.

The knockout stage will begin on…

Switzerland has been chosen to host the 2025 Women’s Euros.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said the executive committee chose the Swiss bid over three other candidates after the maximum three rounds of voting. The other candidates were France, Poland and the expected favourite, a four-nation Nordic project with Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Denmark had initially worked on a solo bid for the tournament, but abandoned that idea in 2021 and began a collaboration with other Nordic countries.

Ukraine had also put themselves forward in 2021 but the subsequent invasion of Russia curtailed their potential plans.

But Switzerland has won the race to host the event.

England hosted the Euros in 2022 and were victorious on home soil. The Netherlands previously hosted the 2017 edition, which they won, with Sweden hosting in 2013 when Germany were victorious.

Germany, who extended head coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg’s contract until the end of the 2025 Euros earlier this week, are the competition’s most successful team, winning eight times and finishing as runners-up last year. They remarkably won six consecutive Euros between 2013 and 1995.

More to follow.

(Photo: Getty Images)