The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by Australia and New Zealand promises to be the biggest one on all fronts with its features.
Four years have passed since the USA lifted their fourth Women’s World Cup title and now the 2023 edition is ready to be a showstopper but on a much larger scale. This will be the ninth edition of the tournament. Australia and New Zealand will co-host the pinnacle event of women’s football. The event will begin on 20 July 2023 with the opening match between New Zealand and Norway at Eden Park, Auckland. The final of the competition will take place exactly a month after on 20 August 2023 at Sydney Olympic Stadium in Australia.
A total of 32 nations will participate in an expanded format from this edition of the World Cup. An increase in eight more teams to showcase the growth of professionalism in women’s football and the peak in attendance numbers. VAR is available after its first use in 2019 while the semi-automated off-side technology is set to be introduced for the first time in the women’s competition.
2023 Women’s World Cup Info
32 teams
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has been expanded to 32 teams which is the first time in the tournament’s history. Earlier, 24 nations used to compete at this stage. It is also the first ever inter-confederation play-offs tournament held in New Zealand to determine the remaining three teams joining the already qualified 30, including the two hosts, in the group stages. Haiti, Portugal and Panama qualified via that route. Including Australia, six slots were given to Asia while four slots included Africa and North American boards. Three slots for CONMEBOL, one from the Oceania confederation and the remaining 11 went to UEFA.
Change in format
With the increase of participating nations in the tournament, naturally, the format has also changed. Eight more teams are added in the 2023 edition and the groups have increased from six to eight. The number of teams in each group remains four. This time only the top two sides qualify from the group stages to the knockouts which begins with the round of 16 stage. The overall game count of the tournament increases from 52 to 64. The format of the tournament replicates one used in the men’s FIFA World Cup from 1998 to the last one in 2022.
Co-hosted
This is the first time the FIFA Women’s World Cup is being co-hosted in Australia & New Zealand. Before this, only the men’s tournament was hosted by more than one nation in FIFA’s history. It is also the first senior World Cup for either men’s or women’s to be held across multiple confederations as Australia belongs to the Asian Confederation (AFC) while New Zealand is in the Oceanian Confederation (OFC). The joint bid was won in June 2020 after Brazil and Japan withdraw before the final voting. The bidding process began on 19 February 2019.
Semi-Automated Offside
Semi-Automated Offside was introduced in any competition for the first time in the men’s FIFA World Cup at Qatar last year. Now, chairman of FIFA's referee committee, Pierluigi Collina confirmed the technology will be used in Australia and New Zealand for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. With the help of the new system, the officials will be able to make decisions on offside calls faster and more accurately. 12 dedicated tracking cameras will collect up to 29 data points for each individual player, 50 times, calculating their exact position on the pitch. The ball used for the tournament, OCEAUNZ, will also detect offside through an inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensor placed inside.
Increase in prize money
Another feature of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup is that the prize money will have a significant increase to the previous editions. From the $30m for the 24-team edition in 2019, there is a big jump to $150m in this year’s tournament. It is still considerably lower than the $440m total prize money awarded at the 32-team men's World Cup last year but FIFA said it is aiming to reach equal pay between the men's and women's tournaments by 2027. $110m will actually go as prize money with $31m is for the preparation fund and the clubs from where the players are released receiving $11m as benefits.
