Australia and New Zealand to host FIFA Women's World Cup 2023.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="712"]
Image: indie sport[/caption]
Australia and New Zealand have been successful in their historic joint bid to host the 2023 Federation International De Football Association (FIFA) Women's World cup. The joint Australia-New Zealand bid won 22 out of the 35 votes from the FIFA council. Despite UEFA's last minute decision to support the Columbia bid as a bloc causing some jitters, 22 votes sealed the deal against Colombia's 13.
The joint bid was favorite to win after the technical audit scores were released at the beginning of June, which signified the capability of a country to host the large scale event. Australia recieved a score of 4.1 out of five and Columbia a 2.8.
"It is the holy grail. I think when the conversation stops being quite as gendered, people will realise this is actually brilliant for the whole game and what football can offer to the society as whole", said Ros Moriarty, chair of Football Federation Australia's Women's Football council.
Over the past four years, the number of women and girls registered to play football in Australia has increased by 21 per cent (including 11 per cent in 2019 alone) and Moriarty underlined that the tournament provided an opportunity to go beyond the women's council's goal of doubling participation in the next decade.
The tournament will be the first co-confederation-hosted FIFA World Cup (Australia, being part of the Asian football confederation and New Zealand a member of the oceanic bench) as well as the first ever FIFA Women's World Cup to be held in Asia-Pacific region. It was also reported that the 2023 World Cup would be larger than the previous tournaments, with the number of teams at the group stage of the final tournament exceeding from 24 to 32 teams.
"It will be even more global and will have much positive impact on the development of Women's football" ,said FIFA council president Gianni Infantile. He also expressed a preference for the successful Australia/New Zealand bid during the FIFA council meeting.
Image: indie sport[/caption]Australia and New Zealand have been successful in their historic joint bid to host the 2023 Federation International De Football Association (FIFA) Women's World cup. The joint Australia-New Zealand bid won 22 out of the 35 votes from the FIFA council. Despite UEFA's last minute decision to support the Columbia bid as a bloc causing some jitters, 22 votes sealed the deal against Colombia's 13.
The joint bid was favorite to win after the technical audit scores were released at the beginning of June, which signified the capability of a country to host the large scale event. Australia recieved a score of 4.1 out of five and Columbia a 2.8.
"It is the holy grail. I think when the conversation stops being quite as gendered, people will realise this is actually brilliant for the whole game and what football can offer to the society as whole", said Ros Moriarty, chair of Football Federation Australia's Women's Football council.
Over the past four years, the number of women and girls registered to play football in Australia has increased by 21 per cent (including 11 per cent in 2019 alone) and Moriarty underlined that the tournament provided an opportunity to go beyond the women's council's goal of doubling participation in the next decade.
The tournament will be the first co-confederation-hosted FIFA World Cup (Australia, being part of the Asian football confederation and New Zealand a member of the oceanic bench) as well as the first ever FIFA Women's World Cup to be held in Asia-Pacific region. It was also reported that the 2023 World Cup would be larger than the previous tournaments, with the number of teams at the group stage of the final tournament exceeding from 24 to 32 teams.
"It will be even more global and will have much positive impact on the development of Women's football" ,said FIFA council president Gianni Infantile. He also expressed a preference for the successful Australia/New Zealand bid during the FIFA council meeting.