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Australia and New Zealand will co-host the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\nAustralia and New Zealand will co-host the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
The joint bid was chosen by the council of football\u2019s world governing body FIFA, which met on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
It saw off competition from Colombia, with Brazil and Japan having dropped out earlier on in the process.<\/p>\n
Australia and New Zealand\u2019s bid received the best score from FIFA\u2019s own evaluation report \u2013 4.1 out of five \u2013 compared to Colombia\u2019s score of 2.8.<\/p>\n
The FIFA report described the joint bid as being the most favorable from a commercial perspective.<\/p>\n
The 2023 finals will feature 32 teams for the first time, with the bid proposing to use up to eight venues in Australia and five in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
It was also the first time countries from different continental confederations had come together for a bid, with Australia within the Asian Football Confederation and New Zealand in the Oceania Football Confederation.<\/p>\n
The tournament is due to be played in July and August 2023, and will complete a busy 12 months for the women\u2019s game, with the Euros taking place in England the summer before.<\/p>\n
That tournament was originally scheduled for 2021, but was put back after the men\u2019s Euro 2020 was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n