2023 FIFA Women's World Cup
The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup is the 9th edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for women's national football teams organised by FIFA. The tournament will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, during a reserved period in the FIFA Women's International Match Calendar between 10 July and 20 August 2023. The 2023 tournament will see the Women's World Cup expanded from 24 to 32 teams.
The United States are the defending champions going into the competition, having won the previous two tournaments in 2015 and 2019.
Host selection
FIFA announced that bidding had begun for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup on 19 February 2019. Member associations interested in hosting the tournament had to submit a declaration of interest by 15 March 2019, and provide the completed bidding registration by 16 April 2019. However, FIFA revised the bidding timeline as the tournament expanded to 32 teams on 31 July 2019. Other member associations interested in hosting the tournament now had until 16 August 2019 to submit a declaration of interest, while the completed bidding registration of new member associations and re-confirmation of prior bidders was due by 2 September 2019.Nine countries initially indicated interest in hosting the events: Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and South Africa. Belgium expressed interest in hosting the tournament following the new deadline but later dropped out with Bolivia in September 2019. Australia and New Zealand later announced they would merge their bids in a joint submission. Brazil, Colombia, and Japan joined them in submitting the bid books to FIFA by 13 December 2019. However, both Brazil and Japan later withdrew their bids in June 2020 before the final voting.
On 25 June 2020, Australia and New Zealand officially won the bid to host the Women's World Cup. The decision came after a vote by the FIFA Council, with the winning bid earning 22 votes, while Colombia earned 13. Neither country had previously hosted a senior FIFA tournament. It is the first Women's World Cup to be hosted in multiple countries, and only the second World Cup tournament to do so, following the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It is also the first FIFA Women's World Cup held in the southern hemisphere, the first senior FIFA tournament to be held in Oceania, and the first FIFA tournament to be hosted across multiple confederations. Australia is the second association from the AFC to host the Women's World Cup, after China in both 1991 and 2007.
Format
In July 2019, FIFA President Gianni Infantino proposed an expansion of the Women's World Cup from 24 to 32 teams, starting with the 2023 edition, and doubling the tournament's prize money. The proposal came following the success of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup and the prior edition of the tournament in 2015, which after increasing from 16 to 24 teams set an attendance record for all FIFA competitions besides the men's FIFA World Cup. Expanding the tournament to allow an eight additional participating teams gave more member associations a greater opportunity to qualify for the final tournament. This fostered the growing reach and professionalisation of the women's game.On 31 July 2019, the FIFA Council unanimously decided to expand the tournament to 32 teams, featuring eight groups of four.
The tournament opens with a group stage consisting of eight groups of four teams, with the top two teams progressing from each group to a knockout tournament starting with a round of 16 teams. The number of games played overall increases from 52 to 64. The tournament replicates the format of the FIFA World Cup used between 1998 and 2022.
Qualification
Australia and New Zealand automatically qualify for the tournament as co-hosts. Qualifying matches expect to start in 2021 and end in 2022.On 9 December 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency handed Russia a four-year ban from all major sporting events, after Russian Anti-Doping Agency was found non-compliant for handing over manipulated lab data to investigators. However, the Russia national team could still enter qualification, as the ban only applies to the final tournament to decide the world champions. If Russia were to qualify, Russian footballers could still potentially compete at the tournament, pending a decision from FIFA. However, a team representing Russia that uses the Russian flag and anthem cannot participate under the current WADA decision. The decision pends appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the final tournament.| Team | Qualified as | Qualification date | Appearance in finals | Consecutive streak | Previous best performance |
| 25 6 2020 | 8th | 8 | |||
| 25 6 2020 | 6th | 5 |