Federations Roundup - FIFA Talks Women's World Cup; IAAF Exhibit Spans Millennia

(ATR) FIFA says it's "the ideal dream" for the Women’s World Cup to one day reach the level of the men’s edition.

"It is our hope that it [Women’s World Cup] will reach the level of men’s football – that is the ideal dream," Maryilian Cruz Blanco, FIFA’s women’s football development manager, told reporters at the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan on Sunday.

"It depends on where it is organized. Germany is a fantastic example because as soon as they got the World Cup, they started working."

She added: "It depends a lot on the organizing committee, on the culture, on the country.

"Now we go to Canada [2015 hosts] and football is not the first sport so it’s a different challenge.

The previous senior Women’s World Cup held in Germany in 2011 set records for attendances, TV viewing figures and revenues.

Blanco admitted the Women's World Cup still had some way to go to reach figures seen at the men’s edition.

The World Cup in 2015 will see the number of teams competing increase from 16 to 24.

But Blanco said the challenge will be to keep the "pace and standards" of the game.

"We will base them on the legacy of Germany because we had such a good tournament, such good coverage" she added.

Germany 2011 welcomed a record 800,000 spectators with an average of 26,000 per match. FIFA said the surplus for the tournament wasaround $70 million.

For more coverage from Baku, follow World Football INSIDER.

IAAF Exhibit Spans Millennia

A vase from the 5th century BC and a volunteer’s uniform from the 2012 Olympics are among the items included in the IAAF’s upcoming Centenary Historic Exhibition.

Billed as the greatest collection of athletics memorabilia ever assembled, it’s part of the federation’s year-long centenary celebrations.

The exhibit will be open to the public for six weeks from Oct. 13 to Nov. 25 at the Juan Antonio Samaranch Olympic and Sports Museum in Barcelona before closing on the weekend of the IAAF Centenary Gala.

Other artifacts include a coin from Olympia in 256 BC as well as and the bib numbers of Ethiopian gold medalists Meseret Defar and Tirunesh Dibaba from the Games in London.

Much of the core collection comes from the gallery of Roberto Gesta de Melo, an IAAF Council member from Brazil.

Reported in Baku by Christian Radnedge and in Atlanta by Matthew Grayson

20 Years at #1: