Host country France | Dates 1–30 June 2019 | |
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Teams 24 (from 6 confederations) Venue(s) 12 (candidates) (in 12 host cities) | ||
The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup will be the 8th edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's football championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. In March 2015, France won the right to host the event, the first time the country would host the tournament and the third time in Europe. Matches are planned for eleven cities across France. The current format of the tournament is to be among 24 national teams, including that of the host nation. The defending champions are the United States.
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Host selection
On 6 March 2014, FIFA announced that bidding had begun for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Member associations interested in hosting the tournament had to submit a declaration of interest by 15 April 2014, and provide the complete set of bidding documents by 31 October 2014. In principle, FIFA prefer the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup and the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup to be hosted by the same member association, but if circumstances require, FIFA reserves the right to award the hosting of the events separately.
Initially, five countries indicated interest in hosting the events: England, France, Korea Republic, New Zealand and South Africa. However, the number of bidding nations was narrowed down to two in October 2014, when the French Football Federation and Korea Football Association submitted their official bid documents to FIFA. Both The Football Association and New Zealand Football registered expressions of interest by the April 2014 deadline, but in June 2014 it was announced that each would no longer proceed. The South African Football Association registered an expression of interest by the April 2014 deadline, however later decided to withdraw prior to the final October deadline. Both Japan Football Association and the Swedish Football Association had also expressed interest in bidding for the 2019 tournament, however Japan chose to focus on the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Summer Olympics, whilst Sweden decided to focus on European U-17 competitions instead.
The following countries made official bids for hosting the tournament by submitting their documents by 31 October 2014:
On 19 March 2015, France officially won the bid to host the Women's World Cup and the U-20 Women's World Cup. The decision came after a vote by the FIFA Executive Committee.
Qualification
The slot allocation was approved by the FIFA Council on 13–14 October 2016. The slots for each confederation are unchanged from that of the previous tournament except the slot for the hosts is moved from CONCACAF (Canada) to UEFA (France).
Qualifying matches are expected to take place in 2017 and 2018.
Qualified teams
The following teams qualified for the final tournament.
Venues
The opening match and final will be played at Parc Olympique Lyonnais in the Lyon suburb of Décines, with 58,000 capacity. Roazhon Park in Rennes will host six matches—four in the group stage, one in the round of 16, and one semifinal. Ten other cities are candidates, with eight of them to be chosen to host matches.
Two of the stadiums were used at the UEFA Euro 2016: Parc Olympique in Lyon and Allianz Riviera in Nice. Another two stadiums were used at both the 1998 FIFA World Cup and 2007 Rugby World Cup: Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier and Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes. The other stadiums seat under 30,000 spectators.