FIFA Women’s World Cup 2024

Blog Credit: Trupti Thakur

Image Courtesy: Google

FIFA Women’s World Cup 2024

The 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup is scheduled to be the tenth edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the quadrennial international women’s football championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament will include 32 teams for the second time after FIFA announced the expansion of the tournament in July 2019. Spain are the defending champions, having won their first title in 2023.

On 17 May 2024, FIFA announced that Brazil won the hosting rights, making this the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in South America. Brazil will become the sixth country—after Sweden, the United States, Germany, France, and Canada—to host both the men’s and women’s World Cup, having hosted the former in 1950 and 2014. It is also the first country to host eight different FIFA competitions.

Host selection

On 23 March 2023, FIFA announced that bidding had begun for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Member associations interested in hosting the tournament had to submit a declaration of interest by 21 April, and provide the completed bidding registration by 8 December.

Fourteen countries initially indicated interest in hosting the events, two of which were joint bids. These were Belgium-Germany-Netherlands, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Mexico, Denmark-Finland-Iceland-Norway-Sweden (Nordic bid), South Africa and United States. Chile, Italy, the Nordic bid and South Africa would later drop out, some of which stated their expressions to host the following tournament in 2031. The Mexican Football Federation and the United States Soccer Federation would later merge their bids in a joint submission. Brazil and the Belgium-Germany-Netherlands joined them in submitting their bid books to FIFA by 8 December. However, the Mexico-United States withdrew their bid in April 2024, just weeks before the host selection, refocusing their efforts on a bid to host the 2031 edition instead.

Voting

The voting took place on 17 May 2024, during the 74th FIFA Congress in Bangkok, and it was opened to all 204 eligible members. The Brazilian bid won with 119 valid ballots, while the Breaking New Ground bid received 78 valid ballots. Curaçao, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Libya, Namibia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Togo abstained while Norway and the Philippines were unable to vote due to technical difficulties.

74th FIFA Congress vote
Nation	Vote
	Round 1
Brazil	119
Belgium,  Germany and  Netherlands	78
Abstentions	10
Total votes	207
Majority required	104

Format

The Women’s World Cup, since the 2023 edition, opens with a group stage consisting of eight groups of four teams, with the top two teams progressing from each group to a knockout tournament starting with a round of 16 teams. The number of games played overall is 64.

Teams

Team whose qualification process has yet to be decided

FIFA’s confederations organise their qualifications through continental championships, with the exception of UEFA, which organises its own qualifying competition. The host Brazil qualified automatically for the tournament, leaving most of the remaining FIFA member associations eligible to enter qualification if they chose to do so. An exception may be Russia, which is currently under suspension by FIFA and UEFA from all competitions since 28 February 2022 due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The allocation of slots below is based upon the allocation for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The slot for the host nation will be taken directly from the quotas allocated to their confederation.

• AFC (Asia): 6 slots
• CAF (Africa): 4 slots
• CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean): 4 slots
• CONMEBOL (South America): 3 slots (including hosts Brazil)
• OFC (Oceania): 1 slot
• UEFA (Europe): 11 slots
• Inter-confederation play-off tournament: 3 slots

A ten-team play-off tournament will decide the final three spots at the Women’s World Cup. The play-off slot allocation is as follows:

• AFC (Asia): 2 slots
• CAF (Africa): 2 slots
• CONCACAF (North America, Central America and the Caribbean): 2 slots
• CONMEBOL (South America): 2 slots
• OFC (Oceania): 1 slot
• UEFA (Europe): 1 slot

 

 

Blog By: Trupti Thakur