South Africa Still in the Race to Host Women’s World Cup

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has revealed that nine nations have submitted their bidding registration for hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.

FIFA made the announcement on their website this afternoon, which revealed a record nine bids.

South Africa, which hosted the 2010 men’s tournament, is the only African country which met the April 2019 deadline set by the governing body of world soccer to submit registration for hosting the competition.

They will compete with nations from South America, Asia and Oceania for the right to stage the prestigious women’s event.

“FIFA is pleased to confirm that it has received nine registrations in connection with the bidding process for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023,” said FIFA in a statement.

Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand are the other countries that will be vying for the hosting rights.

FIFA will now dispatch the various bidding and hosting documents, and the member associations will have until 4 October 2019 to submit their respective bids to FIFA.

The hosts of the competition are expected to be revealed in March 2020 after the selection which will be done via secret ballot.

That means the host will be selected by the 37-strong FIFA Council – consisting of just six women – rather than the full congress.

FIFA handed the responsibility to the congress last year following the corruption investigations into the 2018 and 2022 bidding processes which were controversially won by Russia and Qatar, respectively.

The next edition of the event takes place this year, with France set to host the tournament between 7th June and 7th July.