The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup will be the 9th edition of the tournament, which is held every four years and is the world championship for women’s national teams in the sport of association football.
Australia and New Zealand are co-hosting a competition in 2023; it will take place between July 20 and August 20; Due to the fact that Australia and New Zealand are in different confederations, this will be the first senior World Cup for either sex to be contested across multiple confederations, and the first time that the FIFA Women’s World Cup will have more than one host country.
This event will also be the first to feature 32 countries instead of the traditional 24, mirroring the format of the men’s World Cup from 1998 until 2022. New Zealand and Norway will square off in the opening match on July 20, 2023, at Eden Park in Auckland.
Sydney Olympic Stadium in Australia will host the August 20, 2023, championship match. After consecutive victories, the United States is the current competition winner.
History of the FIFA Women’s World Cup
Fédération Internationale de Football Association (aka FIFA) is the worldwide governing authority of the sport of association football, and its member associations compete in the FIFA Women’s and Men’s World Cup.
Since the first tournament in 1991, when it was named the FIFA Women’s World Championship, it has been contested every four years and one year after the men’s FIFA World Cup. There is currently a three-year qualifying period in which participating nations compete for 31 spots.
The squad from the host country will always be entered in the tournament as the 32nd side. The World Cup Championships are played over the course of about a month at various locations throughout the host country.
Four different national sides have triumphed at each of the eight FIFA Women’s World Cup competitions. The 2019 event in France marked the United States’ fourth victory, making them the current champions. In addition to Germany’s tally of two, the victors also include Japan and Norway, each of which can boast a single victory.
There have been six different nations that have held the Women’s World Cup. Only two countries have held the event more than once: China and the United States. Canada, France, Germany, and Sweden have all hosted once.
In 2023, Australia and New Zealand will host the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This will be the first time the tournament has taken place in the Southern Hemisphere, the first time two countries have hosted the tournament, and the first time a FIFA senior tournament has been held in two different confederations (for either men or women). This will be a history-making time for the FIFA Women’s World Cup as it breaks the rules on so many levels.
The process of host selection for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
On February 19, 2019, host cities started applying to play host at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. In order to host the competition, member organizations needed to register their interest by March 15 and submit their bids by April 16. As the competition grew to 32 teams on July 31, FIFA reworked the bidding schedule.
There was a new deadline of August 16 for other member organizations to declare their interest in holding the competition and a new deadline of September 2 for completing the bidding registration of new member associations and re-confirming previous bidders.
Nine nations, including Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, South Korea (interested in a joint bid with North Korea), New Zealand, and South Africa, originally expressed interest in holding the games. After the new deadline, Belgium and Bolivia both showed interest in hosting the event but ultimately backed out in September 2019.
Australia and New Zealand subsequently made public their plans to combine their bids into a single entry. By December 13, they had joined Brazil, Colombia, and Japan in sending their application books to FIFA. Later, in June 2020, just before the final election, both Brazil and Japan withdrew their applications.
Australia and New Zealand were selected to host the 2020 Women’s World Cup on June 25.
The FIFA Council eventually decided in favor of the winning proposal, which received 22 ballots to Colombia’s 13. Neither nation had ever held a full-fledged FIFA competition before.
The 2002 FIFA World Cup, which was hosted in Japan and South Korea, was the only other World Cup event to be organized in more than one country. Not only is this the first FIFA tournament to be hosted by numerous confederations, but it’s also the first FIFA Women’s World Cup to be contested in the Southern Hemisphere (with Australia in the AFC and New Zealand in the OFC). After China in 1991 and again in 2007, Australia is the second AFC member to hold the Women’s World Cup.
Venues for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
In their bid book to FIFA, Australia and New Zealand listed thirteen potential championship sites spread across twelve host towns and recommended a total of ten stadiums (five in each nation) to be used.
Under the original proposal for the joint bid, the locations would have been split into three distinct transportation hubs: A South Hub consisting of Perth, Adelaide, Launceston, and Melbourne; an East Hub consisting of Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne, and Launceston; and a New Zealand Hub consisting of Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.
With the old Football Stadium in the same location being demolished, the Sydney Football Stadium is the only new venue included in the bid having a significant renovation.
On June 10, 2020, FIFA published its proposal evaluation, which stated that the majority of the stadiums mentioned in the bid satisfy FIFA’s hosting standards with capacity, with the exception of Adelaide and Auckland.
Minor renovations, including new floodlighting, pitch renovations, and gender-neutral changing rooms, are planned for most of the stadiums listed in the bid.
The official host cities and venues were named by FIFA on March 31, 2021. There will be five towns and six venues used in Australia, and four cities and two stadiums used in New Zealand.
There were a number of potential locations in Australia, but neither Newcastle nor Launceston was chosen, and in New Zealand, neither Christchurch nor Wellington was chosen.
The 2023 Women’s World Cup kicks off at Eden Park in Auckland and concludes at Stadium Australia in Sydney. In an attempt to “reconcile and honor the original proprietors of the land,” the brand will incorporate the use of indigenous names (Indigenous Australian and Mori in New Zealand) alongside the English names of all host towns.
The theme song, mascot, emblem, and trophy of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup
The current trophy, which was designed in 1998 for the 1999 tournament, is a spiral band with a football at its center, and it is meant to represent the grace, power, and athleticism of women’s international football. In the modern era, a base in the shape of a cone was added.
Each previous champion of the tournament has their name engraved into the base. The 47-centimeter (19-inch) tall trophy is made of sterling silver clad in a 23-karat yellow and white gold and is valued at around $30,000 as of 2015.
The men’s World Cup trophy, on the other hand, is made of 18-karat gold and is worth about $150,000 in precious metals. Each women’s champion, however, receives a brand-new Winner’s Trophy, while the men’s trophy is retained by FIFA, and each champion receives a replica.
British DJ and music artist Kelly Lee Owens dropped “Unity” as the event’s title song on October 28, 2021, the same day the official insignia and catchphrase were unveiled.
The formal emblem, created by Toronto’s Public Address and Los Angeles’s Works Creative Agency, was introduced on stage in a live event on October 28, 2021. As a symbol of the enlarged playing area and the diverse landscapes of the two host countries, the logo shows a football surrounded by 32 different colored squares.
Chern’ee Sutton, an Australian artist, and Fiona Collis, a Maori artist, have designed patterns for use in competition logos that pay homage to the indigenous peoples of the two host countries. The tournament’s marketing will also feature the indigenous titles of all host towns.
The motto of the game, “Beyond Greatness,” was also unveiled at the same time as the logo, and it represents FIFA’s intention for the competition to increase the profile of women’s football. As part of the formal branding, the indigenous (Indigenous Australian and Mori in New Zealand) forms of the names of the host towns were used.