The Women’s World Cup is to be expanded from 24 to 32 teams at the 2023 edition in an effort to “foster the growth of women’s football,” FIFA said on Wednesday.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino had already said that he was determined to push ahead with plans to expand the World Cup in time for the next tournament after hailing this year as “the best ever.”
“The astounding success of this year’s World Cup made it very clear that this is the time to keep the momentum going and take concrete steps to foster the growth of women’s football,” said Infantino, who expanded the men’s tournament from 32 teams to 48 in time for the 2026 finals in the US, Mexico and Canada.
“I am glad to see this proposal — the first of several — becoming a reality,” he added.
This year’s 24-team event featured a few lopsided scores in the group stage, notably the US’ 13-0 thrashing of Thailand.
The FIFA Council on Wednesday unanimously agreed to a proposal to expand the number of teams taking part.
FIFA has yet to select a host for the 2023 World Cup. The nine candidates are Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand and South Korea, potentially with North Korea.
This year’s Women’s World Cup was only the second since it was expanded from 16 teams to 24 in Canada four years ago. The competition started in 1991 with 12 teams.
Infantino has already promised to double the prize fund for the next World Cup having initially raised overall contributions from US$15 million to US$50 million in time for this year’s competition.
He said that the increase was part of a wider plan to invest a further US$500 million in the women’s game to achieve a total of US$1 billion over the next four years.
“We have more than US$2.75 billion of reserves, we don’t need all this money in the Swiss banks, they have enough money,” he said. “We need to invest this in order to make the whole movement around the world grow.”
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