May 12 – The rapidly growing strength of women’s football has been underlined with FIFA’s announcement that five countries have put forward bids to stage the 2019 World Cup. France and England from Europe, South Korea from Asia, New Zealand and South Africa have all declared an interest in hosting the tournament.
With the exception of South Africa, the other four countries have also expressed an interest in hosting the U-20 Women’s World Cup set for 2018. Hosts for both events will be decided at FIFA’s first executive committee meeting next year.
The senior women’s World Cup was first contested in China in 1991 and has since gone to Sweden, the United States twice, China again and Germany. Next year’s event breaks new ground by going to Canada.
A FIFA statement said the bidding process for eight separate tournaments had attracted 31 declarations of interest. For the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2018, five contries have expressed interest: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Egypt, Finland, Northern Ireland and Sweden.
The deadline for submitting bid documents for all three women’s competitions is October 31.
Regarding the Club World Cup, FIFA’s major club competition, India and Japan have expressed a wish to host the tournament in 2015 and 2016, while Brazil, Japan and United Arab Emirates want to stage it in 2017 and 2018.
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