There were various controversies relating to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup; such issues predominantly saw figures within women's football negatively responding to decisions undertaken by FIFA, the world governing body of football, as well as players from several nations taking collective action against their national football associations. Concerns were particularly raised where decisions would clash with LGBT+ rights, something FIFA have acknowledged women's footballers are passionate about, as well as on player welfare and pay. There were also other team-specific issues.

Women's football journalist Suzanne Wrack noted that the types of controversial issues at the Women's World Cup were different to those of the Men's World Cup, and were mainly issues related to the gender gap in professionalism of football; she opined that the 2023 Women's World Cup and the controversies surrounding it were deeply connected, that the on-pitch performances would reflect the progress, or not, made with the off-pitch issues, a situation she described as "fascinating". Sky Sports noted the breadth of the issues, that similar issues affected teams with different backgrounds from all over the world, even if there was greater focus on the "star-heavy" European teams. Some of these issues becoming public controversies ahead of the Women's World Cup was attributed to women's players being vocal about their concerns, due to typically having to advocate for themselves in the sport, with TIME explaining that "female players, it seems, never have the luxury of just sticking to sports".

Hosting and organisation

England host bid vote

After the 2020 vote on which bid would be awarded hosting rights to the 2023 Women's World Cup, co-winners Football Australia criticised the Football Association (the FA; England). The UEFA Council members, including England, agreed to vote for Colombia together, so the FA had not voted for the Australia-New Zealand bid; Football Australia and media in Australia called England's vote "disrespectful" and "a betrayal". Due to colonial ties, the two nations traditionally have fierce sporting rivalries.

Timezones and travel A review of the development of women's football suggested that the location of the tournament so far from the main women's football markets in Europe and the Americas, meaning games will be played at unfavourable times for these audiences (typically overnight or in the early morning), "does cause some problems", but there are ways to still drive engagement through investment. It was noted that a major tournament being held in Australia for the first time meant that it was immensely popular in the host country. Brazil also recorded a different problem with the match schedule: anticipating that people would come to work late in order to watch the team play, the government moved the working hours for the civil service to later in the day for Brazil's group stage games. Morning mass in the hometown of one of the Ireland players was moved earlier so that people could watch their games, while several bars in Washington, D.C. operated 24-hour service during the World Cup after the city approved extended alcohol license hours.

Canadian writer Cathal Kelly was scathing in an opinion piece on the game times, which typically fell in the early morning or late evening in Toronto; Kelly opined that "North America is not the centre of the world, but it is the centre of the women's soccer world", and so should have been prioritised when scheduling matches in Australia and New Zealand. He suggested that many fans would want to watch Spanish star Alexia Putellas play but would not be able to without staying up late on weeknights, though some of the Spain matches were at more reasonable times for viewing in Western Europe. He described the fact not all games were played at appropriate times for North Americans as diminishing the importance of the World Cup, saying it was instead "a half-the-World Cup".

The amount of travel required for teams between host cities was also criticised; due to the size of Australia and the distance between it and New Zealand, all teams playing the group stage in Australia, and all teams from the New Zealand groups that qualify for knock-out stage, will travel over a thousand miles.

Broadcasting rights controversy

After FIFA president Gianni Infantino had said that comparatively low broadcasting rights bids for the tournament from the "big five" countries was an insult to "all women worldwide", and that FIFA had a "moral and legal obligation" to demand more money, he and FIFA were faced with criticism for causing the issue themselves and then lecturing on it. Former FIFA Council member Moya Dodd and sponsorship partner Ricardo Fort opined that FIFA should invest money from previous combined bids into the women's game (though past bids were for both Men's and Women's World Cups, FIFA attributed it all to the men's). Dave Roberts, who has worked with FIFA's in-house streaming broadcaster FIFA+, suggested that FIFA created the problem so that they could exclusively broadcast the tournament in the biggest markets themselves, while Glen Killane (executive director of Eurovision Sport) and former player Rebecca Sowden blamed FIFA for not discussing growth of women's football with broadcasters to assure them of financial viability.

FIFA also expressed similar dissatisfaction from bids from Japanese broadcasters with FIFA reasoning the low bids are more unreasonable considering that Japan is in a more convenient timezone than in its European counterparts.

FIFA had originally tendered for bids for broadcasting rights in June and July 2022, and had not expressed dissatisfaction with these bids until May 2023, almost a year later and shortly before the tournament was set to begin. Ofcom wrote that late rights acquisition was not the fault of broadcasters.

In a press conference the day before the tournament commenced, Infantino said that he would only talk about positive things until it was over, but still criticised broadcasters.

Sydney Football Stadium plaques As part of FIFA's "clean stadium policy", host venues are required to remove their own sponsorship and branding (e.g. taking a neutral name for the tournament duration) from ten days before the tournament begins until 24 hours after it ends, in order to protect the commercial interests of FIFA's sponsorship partners. Sydney Football Stadium, commercially known as Allianz Stadium, fulfilled this but was also told to cover the plaques adjacent to some statues of sports personalities surrounding the stadium. Some of the plaques featured logos, which FIFA may have considered to be a commercial interest. From the start, FIFA advisors had suggested not covering the plaques, but FIFA did it anyway. When the plaques were covered in July 2023, it drew outcry in Australia, with people angered that their sporting heroes were being hidden, especially during a related event; the daughter of Johnny Warren, one of the players whose plaque was covered, said that it was "beyond stupid[,] but it is not the first thing that FIFA has done that is really dumb." FIFA immediately backtracked and said the plaques should be uncovered; however, this revealed that many had been damaged in the process, drawing further complaints.

Sponsorship deals Criticism was levelled at FIFA for not giving the tournament "an opportunity to sell itself". FIFA only secured sponsorship deals late before the tournament began, not allowing time for adequate promotion of the tournament with commercial partners: major sponsors like McDonald's and Unilever signed up two months before the World Cup, and a TikTok collaboration was announced only a week before. The late threat of not selling broadcasting rights to major markets also stopped advertisers from partnering, at the risk of significantly fewer people tuning in. It was suggested that the late deals pointed to a lack of planning on FIFA's behalf, not considering that brands need time "to invest and create brilliant campaigns".

Wellington public transport Metlink, which operates public transport in Wellington, provided free travel to World Cup ticket-holders. However, they underestimated the number of people who would be using this service; Metlink said that the poor weather in Wellington had caused more people to want to take public transport than typical, which was the reason they were not prepared for the number. Trains were overfilled and there were still fans unable to get on, missing the start of games. The public strongly criticised the planning operations, as well as the effect it had in preventing people accessing the World Cup. A separate bus company stepped in to provide replacement transportation, with Metlink saying that they were reviewing the service and would increase train carriages to the maximum possible from the third game onward, after the first two games demonstrated the demand. Metlink then said they would not run additional bus services if knockout games went to extra time; acknowledging that fans would have to leave the match early in order to travel home, Metlink said that adding buses would require reallocating drivers and the change in scheduling would have a knock-on effect to services the next day.

Legacy plan

Australia The legacy plan, set to capitalise on the presence of the tournament in its host nations and cities, was criticised by Australian sports personalities and particularly Indigenous Australians. During the tournament, critics said that the Legacy 23 plan did not have enough focus on Indigenous groups in sports. Some criticised Football Australia, while the Indigenous Football Australia group wrote to FIFA, Football Australia, and the government. Football Australia responded by saying that the plan did not have a lack of funding for Indigenous football. Critics still felt that there was not enough designated funding in Legacy 23, and that there was no enduring commitment to First Nations football in the plan. Football Australia responded that there were other projects with funding devoted to football programmes "that had a specific First Nations element".

New Zealand As part of the legacy plan, host cities were awarded funding to encourage women and girls into football. The New Zealand city of Hamilton spent $170,000 of their $500,000 grant to build a sculpture of a giant football in bright colours. Only $50,000 went to football programmes in the region. Critics alleged that the funding had been misused, and said the sculpture was unlikely to empower female football players. The sculpture was also unveiled at the same time as one of New Zealand's warm-up matches on 10 July, preventing fans from participating. The planners said that girls taking photos with the sculpture would inspire them.

Infantino absences While Infantino had spent nearly a year before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in its host country Qatar in order to "fulfill his presidential duties", he had rarely visited Women's World Cup co-host New Zealand in the run-up to the 2023 tournament, and did not visit Australia at all. During the tournament – despite having made a point of attending every match of the 2022 Men's World Cup, and encouraging fans to buy more tickets to Women's World Cup matches by saying "do the right thing, come to watch the matches" – Infantino only watched a few matches in New Zealand at the start of the tournament before leaving for Tahiti. While the distances involved made it impossible to attend every match as he had in Qatar, he was criticised for staying less than a week, avoiding one of the host nations completely, and for cynicism (having said others were disrespectful towards the event).

Player payments rescinded