Women’s World Cup: UK to host 2035 tournament

The UK is to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup after submitting the only bid received by Fifa for the tournament — and Manchester United’s planned new stadium could be one of the venues.

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, used his speech at Uefa’s Congress in Belgrade to make the announcement, adding that he aims to increase the size of the tournament from 32 teams to 48, in line with the men’s World Cup. The United States submitted the sole bid for the 2031 women’s tournament, which it may jointly host with some Caribbean islands.

England will be the main host nation, with matches also held in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It will be the first time the UK has hosted the women’s tournament and could also pave the way for a future bid for the men’s World Cup.

The final is likely to be held at Wembley — which also hosted the Euro 2022 showpiece, after a successful tournament in England — but no final decisions have been made about up to 16 venues. Windsor Park is set to be Northern Ireland’s stadium, while Wales is likely to have the Principality Stadium in Cardiff and Wrexham’s redeveloped ground used. Two stadiums in Scotland are also set to be included.

Everton are understood to be interested in hosting games, either at Bramley-Moore Dock or Goodison Park. The Bramley-Moore Dock site will be the men’s team’s home ground from next season and would offer the tournament a marquee, 52,888-capacity stadium. Goodison is viewed as an option for a smaller venue. The Times reported this week how a feasibility study is being carried out with a view to it becoming Everton Women’s new home.

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Spain had also expressed an interest in hosting the 2035 tournament along with Portugal and Morocco, but, as revealed by The Times, there was serious confusion over whether the other two countries had officially registered their participation and the bid was not declared valid.

Mark Bullingham, the English FA’s chief executive who was in Belgrade to hear Infantino’s announcement, confirmed that United’s planned new 100,000-capacity stadium, the plans for which were announced last month, could be one of the venues.

“We’re going to have conversations with them and work out if they can be part of it or not,” he said. “We’ve got a number of different stadiums being built in the country, potentially Man United, potentially Birmingham, and with a ten-year horizon you’ve got to work out exactly where you’ll be then.

“There will be lots of conversations to be had, understanding timescales for stadium builds, understanding what people want and knitting that together.”

Bullingham said there was now a “tight timescale” with government guarantees around security, tax, visas and transport needing to be provided to Fifa by April 30. He added that the UK would welcome an expanded 48-team tournament.

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Spain, the defending champions, were rumoured to be part of a bid to rival the UK GETTY

“We’re really well set up for that, you’ve then got to have 16 stadiums,” Bullingham said. “We’d be happy either way, but we’d be really comfortable with 48 teams. It just creates more impact across the whole country.”

The home nations need to finalise the bid before the end of November but, given there is no opposition, being awarded the tournament is likely to be a formality.

“I can confirm that as for the bidding process we have received one bid for 2031, and one valid bid for 2035,” Infantino said. “The 2031 bid is from the USA and potentially some other Concacaf members and the 2035 bid is from Europe, from the home nations [UK].

“So the path is there for the Women’s World Cup to be taking place in 2031 and 2035 in some great countries and some great nations to boost even more the women’s football movement.

“Our idea is to increase the number of participating teams from 32 to 48, equal to the men’s World Cup, as of 2031.”

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Infantino also outlined a plan to change the Olympic football competition so that instead of 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s, there are 16 women’s and 12 men’s.

He added: “Last year the Olympic Games took place in Paris, and we have 16 men’s teams, but it is an under-23 competition essentially, and 12 women’s teams. This is something that we don’t like too much.”

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