By Mark Baber
October 31 – South Korean and French delegations have handed over rival bids for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2018 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup on Thursday to FIFA President Blatter and FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke.
Mong Gyuchung, president of the Korea FA said: “We are very proud to bid for these two competitions. We have the full support from our head of government (Korean president, Park Geunhye) and having this competition would certainly help greatly the development of women’s football in our country.
“It would be the first time we would organise a FIFA women’s tournament, but we have a good experience in other FIFA competition as we were in charge of the FIFA World Cup in 2002, of course, but also the U-17 World Cup in 2007, with the U-20 World Cup to come in 2017.”
French FA president Noel Le Graet commented: “Women’s football has grown up a lot in France over the past decade at every single level and we have increased the number of players a lot in the past five years. There is no doubt being granted these two competitions would give a huge boost to the development of women’s football in France. A lot of cities are interested in hosting the tournament. “
FIFA President Blatter said he was “a very happy President to see these two big football nations competing for these two women’s competitions. Both countries have recently organised a men’s FIFA World Cup; France in 1998 and Korea co-hosting with Japan in 2002 and it’s really great to see now their interest shifting towards women’s competition. I’ve always been behind women’s football and I’m therefore really glad to see this evolution. I wish them both good luck obviously, but I’m really confident that either will be fantastic organisers.”
An official decision on which of the bids is successful will be taken by the FIFA Executive Committee in March 2015. Although South Korea has probably the most gender-unequal society with an advanced economy and France have a very strong bid, excellent stadiums and arguably the world’s best women’s team in Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon would host the final), the Koreans will probably be favorites to host the tournaments due to FIFA’s preference for rotation between confederations.
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