Talks have begun about increasing the Ladies’s World Cup to 48 groups in what may very well be a significant increase to a deliberate UK bid for the event.
Telegraph Sport has been informed senior figures within the world recreation have been discussing matching the dimensions of soccer’s flagship males’s occasion as early because the 2031 version.
It comes a bit greater than 4 months after the USA and Mexico introduced a joint bid for that World Cup concurrently withdrawing from the race to host the 2027 event, which was awarded to Brazil in Might.
The US and Mexican soccer associations revealed their bid would name for “equal funding” to that for the boys’s occasion, one thing that would seem to necessitate enlargement from 32 to 48 groups.
Rival bids, which may embrace one from the UK, could have to match that dedication if Fifa agrees to entertain such a change.
Just like the US – which is co-hosting the primary 48-team males’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico in 2026 – the UK is certainly one of few international locations at present boasting the infrastructure able to staging an expanded event.
UK Sport confirmed in March that bringing soccer residence in 2031, 2035 or 2039 was certainly one of its – and thereby the then-government’s – goals within the subsequent 15 years.
If the World Cup does develop to 48 groups then future editions are all however sure to stay that measurement, wherever they’re staged.
These pushing for such a rise in 2031 are stated to need Fifa to start planning now for it to make sure the extra international locations are aggressive in time.
It’s barely a yr since soccer witnessed its first 32-team Ladies’s World Cup after the event was expanded from 24 entrants.
In Australia and New Zealand eight international locations have been added to the group phases and absorbing one other 16 solely three editions later may show a significant enterprise.
Fifa declined to remark however its president, Gianni Infantino, stated after the 2027 event was awarded: “Let me once more congratulate Brazil for being the host of the 2027 Fifa Ladies’s World Cup. And within the euphoria of the dialogue, someone informed me, ‘Nicely, we should always assume for the longer term – not for ’27, however for the longer term – to extend as nicely the variety of groups for the Ladies’s World Cup from 32 to 48, like we did for the boys. Extra members, extra unity, extra individuals joyful. Nicely, let’s see, let’s see.”
