{"id":572418,"date":"2026-08-18T05:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T05:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572418\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T05:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T05:46:16","slug":"new-zealand-under-20-womens-world-cup-squad-named-amid-boycott-threat-over-gianni-infantino-fifa-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/572418\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Under-20 Women\u2019s World Cup squad named amid boycott threat over Gianni Infantino Fifa leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cI think the amount of work you put in behind the scenes really shows that it does pay off.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand Football has named a 21-player strong squad for the Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Defender Alyssha Eglinton echoed Neary\u2019s sentiment and said she was excited to take on some of the toughest opponents the competition had to offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think trying to come up against those big nations is going to be pretty tough, but I think just playing our way, and we obviously had a good [Australia] tour, I think we came out of that really positive, so I think coming into this World Cup will also be very positive,\u201d Eglinton said.<\/p>\n
The tournament is shrouded in controversy without a ball being kicked over the threat of European nations to boycott it, because of now-aborted plans by Fifa president Gianni Infantino to sell commercial rights in the body\u2019s competitions to private investors.<\/p>\n
The continent\u2019s governing body Uefa said despite the proposal being scrapped, it had still lost confidence in Infantino\u2019s leadership and might follow through with a boycott of Fifa competitions.<\/p>\n
However, the French Football Federation confirmed it will compete at the U20 World Cup, while England U20 women\u2019s coach Lydia Bedford has been told to \u201cjust continue as usual\u201d by England\u2019s Football Association.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Football withdrew its support for Infantino\u2019s leadership on August 14 as he seeks re-election as Fifa president at the 2027 Fifa Congress and is asking for an independent review into how his scheme to sell rights in the World Cup came to be.<\/p>\n
Fifa\u2019s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour has also been fired by the body, after he criticised Infantino\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
In a statement, a Fifa spokeswoman said \u201cthe working relationship between Fifa and Kevin Lamour as chief operating officer has ended\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifa thanks Kevin for his two years of service and wishes him the best of luck for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
New Zealand U20 Women\u2019s World Cup squad<\/p>\n
Mikaela Bangalan, Grace Bartlett, Laura Bennett, Zoe Benson, Daisy Brazendale, Lily Brazendale, Penny Brill, Amber de Wit, Freya Des Fountain, Grace Duncan, Charli Dunn, Alyssha Eglinton, Scarlett Gray, Mackenzie Greene, Nienke Holland, Emily Lyon, Charley March, Charlotte Mortlock, Brooke Neary, Poppy O\u2019Brien, Pia Vlok<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think the amount of work you put in behind the scenes really shows that it does pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[534,696,17099,4596,10542,36862,5213,61090,61091,270283,1043,10136,117,111,43,139,69,1523,2572,1557,1555,26452,282091,2834,377,80],"class_list":["post-572418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amid","tag-announced","tag-boycott","tag-competition","tag-cup","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-gianni","tag-infantino","tag-infantinos","tag-leadership","tag-named","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-president","tag-squad","tag-threat","tag-threats","tag-under20","tag-womens","tag-world","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}