Women’s World Cup 2023: Australia and New Zealand to co-host event after beating Colombia bid

The tournament is due to be played in July and August 2023

Sydney will be one of the host cities of the 2023 World Cup (Getty Images)

Australia and New Zealand will co-host the 2023 Women’s World Cup. The joint bid was chosen by the council of football’s world governing body Fifa, which met on Thursday afternoon. It saw off competition from Colombia, with Brazil and Japan having dropped out earlier on in the process.

Australia and New Zealand’s bid received the best score from Fifa’s own evaluation report – 4.1 out of five – compared to Colombia’s score of 2.8. The Fifa report described the joint bid as being the most favourable from a commercial perspective.

The 2023 finals will feature 32 teams for the first time, with the bid proposing to use up to eight venues in Australia and five in New Zealand. It was also the first time countries from different continental confederations had come together for a bid, with Australia within the Asian Football Confederation and New Zealand in the Oceania Football Confederation.

The tournament is due to be played in July and August 2023, and will complete a busy 12 months for the women’s game, with the Euros taking place in England the summer before. It was originally scheduled for 2021, but was put back after the men’s Euro 2020 was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

PA