Barbie, Steve Irwin, and Bend It Like Beckham: Inside FIFA's Women's World Cup museum

What do Barbie, Steve Irwin, a hijab, a bottle of champagne, and the movie Bend It Like Beckham have in common?

They're all objects contained inside FIFA's pop-up Women's World Cup museum — a giant silver cube that sits inside Sydney's FIFA Fan Festival celebrating the history and culture of women's football.

Titled "Calling The Shots: Faces of Women's Football," the exhibition is organised into five themes: role models, trailblazers, advocates, supporters, and record-breakers, with each section containing personal objects that represent the individuals "who have shaped what it means to play football".

Displayed in a series of glass cases that ring the internal room, the museum features, on the surface, rather unremarkable items. A green armband, a toy doll, a blonde wig, a movie poster, a glass bottle.

But their magic and their meaning comes from who these things belong to, the moments they were witness to, and the bigger ideas they represent.

The armband? Worn by Matildas captain Sam Kerr when she broke Australia's all-time goal-scoring record.

The toy doll? A Barbie that was designed in the image of former USA striker Mia Hamm. A player who sparked the imaginations of an entire generation of American girls, many of whom are competing at the 2023 tournament.

The blonde wig? Part of the Steve Irwin outfits worn by a group of Matildas fans known as 'The Croissants', who formed at the 2019 Women's World Cup in France.

The movie poster? The cover of the famous British film Bend It Like Beckham, one of the first fiction films that used women's football as a vehicle to talk about gender, power, inequality, and discrimination.

And the glass bottle? It held the champagne that was sprayed all over Canada captain Christine Sinclair when she became football's all-time leading international goalscorer.

Interspersed with more football-specific objects like jerseys, gloves, and boots, there is something quite profound about these unremarkable things.

"It was always important to us to cover a diverse range of stories and how everyone has a role to play in growing the women's game," FIFA Museum's Leader of Exhibitions Malgorzata Mankowicz told ABC.

"With this exhibition, we really wanted to tell the stories of the individuals that impacted the game, from grassroots coaches and tournament organisers through to creative people in the film and media industry that help to push the game forward, then finishing with the icons of the modern game and the legends themselves.

"This history is important because we learn through knowing the mistakes and the successes of our predecessors. It allows new generations to learn and be inspired by what others have done before, and to take the game forward themselves."

"We're passionate about this. It's our role to put these stories up there in these beautiful surroundings and pinpoint them and highlight them for others to see."

That's not to say the more football-specific items are any less impressive.

There's the pair of boots worn by Brazilian legend Marta in 2019 when she drew attention to not having her own boot sponsor.

There's the pair of gloves worn by German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer when she became the first (and currently, only) keeper to not concede a single goal in an entire World Cup (2007).

And there's a jersey belonging to a member of Afghanistan's women's national team — a group still exiled from FIFA competitions following the country's takeover by the Taliban, with its senior players currently scattered across Melbourne.

Unlike FIFA's pop-up museum at the 2019 edition in France, which was a much simpler chronological journey of the history of the Women's World Cup, the past is interlaced with the present here in a way that gives rise to certain political and cultural tensions.

An interesting dynamic the museum explores is the one between FIFA itself and the women's game, it has a chequered past with.

The museum showcases athletes like Megan Rapinoe, who have spoken out against the governing body for their positions on issues such as equal pay, LGBTQIA+ rights, and racism.

But the museum's directors don't shy away from these subjects; in fact, they embrace them.

"We want to be true to the history and the culture of the women's game," Mankowicz said.

"It was important to us to feature that progress and these individuals that pushed the game and wanted to fight for it in their own way.

"We didn't want to just cover the stories that are nice and easy, but stories that are more controversial and have an important role to play in the end.

"As you see, we've got the 'advocates' section where we wanted to highlight those aspects of the game.

"It's what happens around the game, not only on the pitch but off the pitch. We don't shy away from these stories because they're important to tell."

The museum isn't just a physical space, either.

For the first time ever, FIFA has included a free online digital museum as part of their exhibition — an interactive website that allows curious fans to learn more about the stars, stories, and legacies of women's football and can be accessed by scanning QR codes scattered around various Fan Zones in Australia and New Zealand.

The museum is, in its own small way, a fitting metaphor for where women's football has arrived now: to a place where it is considered something valuable unto itself, as something with its own deep and textured history, as something that is worth remembering, sharing, and celebrating.

Story By: Samantha Lewis

Original Story link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-10/barbie-steve-irwin-and-bend-it-like-beckham-inside-wwc-museum/102657280