In a dense Wednesday press launch detailing a raft of selections with wide-ranging implications for international soccer, FIFA didn’t, by identify, point out the US. However, with a single sentence, it made the U.S. a heavy favourite to host the 2031 Ladies’s World Cup, probably alongside Mexico.
FIFA, world soccer’s governing physique, stated within the launch that solely nations from Africa and CONCACAF, the area encompassing North and Central America, can be eligible to bid for the 2031 event.
The U.S. Soccer Federation has repeatedly, and more and more, stated it would do exactly that.
“As quickly as [FIFA opens the bidding], we’ll put our bid in,” in January at a coaches conference in Chicago. “And we will win it.”
On Wednesday, the federation that, “in partnership with CONCACAF and its members, [U.S. Soccer] will full the bid course of.” It didn’t point out Mexico, and has not clarified whether or not the U.S. nonetheless plans to incorporate its southern neighbors within the proposal.
The U.S. and Mexico had collectively entered the race for the 2027 Ladies’s World Cup, however weeks earlier than a FIFA vote final 12 months. U.S. cities, locked in surrounding the 2026 males’s World Cup, had hardly been engaged by the bid group. Insiders, in the meantime, indicated that FIFA management needed to carry the 2027 event in Brazil. (, 119-78 over a joint European bid.)
So, the they’d “as an alternative concentrate on bidding to host the event in 2031.”
The expectation was that they’d face stiff competitors from an England-led United Kingdom bid, maybe from a second European bid, and even perhaps from China.
However on Wednesday, — an opaque ruling physique led by FIFA president Gianni Infantino — cleared away that competitors. Infantino and the Council additionally determined that solely African or European nations will be capable of bid for the 2035 Ladies’s World Cup — making the UK bid a favourite for that version.
FIFA’s imprecise justification was, apparently, continental rotation, “considering the nations which have beforehand hosted the event.” France (Europe) hosted in 2019; New Zealand (Oceania) and Australia (a member of Asia’s soccer confederation) hosted in 2023; Brazil (South America) will host in 2027.
There is no such thing as a FIFA regulation backing that justification. There is no such thing as a rule stating {that a} continent should wait two cycles after it final hosted a Ladies’s World Cup to stage the event once more. There’s not even a “precept” or precedent for forcing a confederation to sit down out three cycles. However that’s what FIFA, after negotiations behind closed doorways, will pressure Europe, Asia and Oceania to do.
How, precisely, was the choice made? FIFA didn’t say, and didn’t instantly reply to questions looking for additional remark. The scheme, although, falls in keeping with related ones that .
As Lars Haue-Pederson, managing director of , a number one bid consultancy, instructed Yahoo Sports activities on the time: “The awarding of main occasions is transferring towards some form of dialogue course of.”
Some form of dialogue led to Wednesday’s announcement. The dialogue clearly included the favored hosts. Inside an hour of FIFA’s announcement, the ; and Cone, weeks in the past, had already written in an annual report back to U.S. Soccer stakeholders: “Working with CONCACAF and FIFA, we’re advancing a bid to host the 2031 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup.”
Though the choices had been ratified by the 37-member FIFA Council, they reeked of high-level politicking and compromises. The Council, sources have instructed Yahoo Sports activities, typically serves to primarily rubber-stamp choices made by Infantino in session with the six males who run soccer’s regional confederations — who meet a day earlier than the bigger conferences because the extra unique “Bureau of the FIFA Council.”
And since each conferences are solely non-public, no person may problem the choices.
The upshot for U.S. Soccer is that the majority potential challengers for the 2031 Ladies’s World Cup have been barred.
From Africa, Morocco and South Africa have each floated bids. However the North American bid, which is able to promise record-breaking income and packed NFL stadiums, will probably be a heavy favourite — whether or not U.S. Soccer contains Mexico or goes alone.
That CONCACAF is inexplicably barred from the 2035 bidding course of means that FIFA is banking on the U.S.-led bid profitable in 2031.
It might mark the third time the Ladies’s World Cup can be held in the US. The groundbreaking 1999 version nonetheless holds numerous attendance information. The 2003 version was relocated from China to the States because of the SARS epidemic. Since then, the event has been held in China, Germany, Canada, France and Australia-New Zealand.
FIFA stated that bidding rules and necessities had been permitted. Deadlines haven’t but been introduced, however “it’s anticipated that the choices on the hosts of the [2031 and 2035] competitions will probably be taken” at a gathering of all 211 FIFA member associations within the spring of 2026.
American officers, although, are already assured. At U.S. Soccer’s annual basic assembly final weekend, as Cone detailed , the federation confirmed stakeholders a slide that positioned the Ladies’s World Cup trophy alongside logos for the 2025 males’s Membership World Cup, 2026 males’s World Cup and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“These tournaments will generate important financial affect,” Cone stated, “enabling additional investments into our recreation, and into communities, your communities, throughout America.”
Additionally on Wednesday, FIFA introduced {that a} Ladies’s Membership World Cup — which Infantino beforehand stated would launch in January 2026 — will as an alternative launch in 2028.
The long-promised event is seen as fascinating by many within the ladies’s recreation, and filled with potential, as a result of — in contrast to in males’s soccer, the place the game’s finest golf equipment are concentrated in Western Europe — there’s fixed and legit debate concerning the relative high quality of girls’s membership groups in Europe, Asia and the Americas. And, so far, there isn’t a one competitors that permits them to settle that debate on the sector.
FIFA, although, earlier than and after Infantino’s 2024 proclamation, has dragged its toes on the creation of a world ladies’s competitors. It hardly communicated any particulars to leagues and golf equipment in 2024, and as an alternative targeted on the — which is controversial and has sparked resistance from highly effective leagues and golf equipment in Europe.
So it grew to become clear to folks all through ladies’s soccer that the 2026 launch wouldn’t occur. However now, FIFA says, it has a plan.
“The inaugural version of the quadrennial FIFA Ladies’s Membership World Cup will happen in January-February 2028,” FIFA stated in a launch after Wednesday’s FIFA Council assembly.
It’s going to primarily be a 19-team event, with a play-in spherical after which a 16-team group stage. Asia, Africa, CONCACAF and South America will every ship not less than two groups; Europe will ship not less than 5; and each confederation, together with Oceania, could have the chance to ship a further group through the play-in spherical.
FIFA stated the event’s host(s) would “be decided by FIFA in the end.”
Within the interim, it additionally stated it will launch a smaller “Ladies’s Champions Cup,” a six-team showdown akin to the previous males’s Membership World Cup, in 2026. That event will probably be held yearly in non-Membership World Cup years, and have the champions of the six confederations from the earlier season.
