May 19 – Concacaf has released more details of its inaugural W Gold Cup, the confederation’s new women’s national team championship to be played February 17 – March 10, 2024, in the US.
The venue for the finals and the dates of the qualifying schedule have still to be released, but Concacaf confirmed at the qualifying group draw that, like the men’s Gold Cup, the finals will start with a 6-team preliminary knock out round to qualify three teams for the final group stage.
The 12-team tournament will be played with four guest teams from Conmebol – Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Paraguay (based on the results of the 2022 Women’s Copa America).
Alongside their pre-qualification are the two Concacaf nations that will compete at the Paris Olympics in 2024 – the US and Canada or Jamaica.
The other 35 Concacaf national women’s teams were split into three leagues based on their Concacaf ranking, and then drawn into groups.
The 2023 Road to Concacaf W Gold Cup groups are:
League A (nine top-ranked teams divided into three groups of three)
Group A: Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Puerto Rico.
Group B: Canada or Jamaica, Panama, and Guatemala.
Group C: Costa Rica, Haiti, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
League B (next 12 best-ranked teams divided into three groups of four teams)
Group A: Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname, and Dominica.
Group B: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Martinique.
Group C: Dominican Republic, Bermuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados.
League C (14 remaining teams divided into two groups of four teams and two groups of three teams)
Group A: Belize, Aruba, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Bonaire.
Group B: Cuba, Saint Lucia, Guadeloupe, and Sint Maarten.
Group C: US Virgin Islands, Grenada, and Bahamas.
Group D: Curacao, Cayman Islands, and Anguilla.
Matches will be played in September, October, and November 2023, with the top finishers in each of the League A groups (three teams) qualifying directly for the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup Group Stage.
The second-place finishers in each of the League A groups (three teams) and the first-place finishers in each of the League B groups (three teams) will advance to the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup Prelims that will be played the week before the W Gold Cup group stages kick off.
Group stages will be played February 20-28.
The three group winners and runners-up, plus the two best third-place finishers will advance to the three rounds of knockout stages to be played March 2-10.
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