FIFA Women's World Cup

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is an international women’s soccer tournament sanctioned by the sport’s global governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), typically abbreviated as FIFA. Conceived in 1989, the FIFA Women’s World Cup was first held in 1991 and has gone on to become the premier event in women’s soccer. Nations become eligible to participate in the quadrennial tournament through a qualification process governed by FIFA’s six regional member confederations. Like the FIFA World Cup, its counterpart men’s event, the tournament is divided into two phases: a round-robin group stage and an elimination stage commonly known as the “knockout stage.” Teams that finish in high positions in their groups after round-robin play advance to the knockout stage, which features single-elimination head-to-head matchups that continue until only two teams remain undefeated. Those two teams meet in the final, with the winner earning a gold medal as world champions.

Brief History

The idea for a FIFA-backed international women’s soccer tournament was first forwarded in 1989 by Joao Havelange, FIFA’s president at the time. His proposal was met with strong support and the inaugural FIFA Women’s World Cup was held in China in 1991. Twelve teams participated, with the United States defeating Norway 2–1 in a final attended by 65,000 spectators. Sweden bested Germany 4–0 in the third-place match to capture the bronze medal. The 1995 tournament, held in Sweden, also featured a twelve-team field. Norway defeated Germany 2–0 in the final to claim their first world title, with the United States topping China by a 2–0 margin in the third-place game.

Many observers cite the tournament’s 1999 edition as a key turning point for the event’s growth. Hosted by the United States, the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup saw matches held in large stadiums, while strong advertising and promotional efforts drew in record TV audiences and revenues. The field expanded to sixteen teams. More than 90,000 people attended the final, held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Following a scoreless draw, the United States claimed its second World Cup title by edging China, 5–4, in a penalty shootout. Brazil defeated Norway in the third-place match to earn the bronze. In 2003, the United States hosted the tournament again, claiming bronze with a 3–1 win over Canada in the third-place match. Germany broke through to win its first title, upending Sweden in extra time by a 2–1 margin.

China hosted the 2007 tournament, in which Germany repeated as champions by prevailing over Brazil in the final by a 2–0 score. The United States beat Norway 4–0 in the third-place match to claim their second consecutive bronze. The tournament’s last sixteen-team edition took place in 2011, with Japan stunning the United States in a penalty shootout to claim the gold medal. Sweden topped France 2–1 in the third-place match.

The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup featured an expanded field of twenty-four teams with Canada playing host. Japan and the United States met in the final for the second consecutive time, with the Americans winning by a score of 5–2 and capturing gold. England beat Germany in extra time to capture bronze.

In France in 2019, the tournament staged its most successful edition up to that point, receiving extensive international television and media coverage. The United States won its fourth gold medal, beating the Netherlands, 2–0, in a final that attracted a global TV audience estimated at 260 million viewers. Sweden won bronze, toppling England in the third-place match.

In July 2019 FIFA president Gianni Infantino proposed doubling the tournament's prize money and expanding its size from twenty-four teams to thirty-two. Later that month, FIFA's governing council voted to approve expanding the size of the tournament. In June 2020 Australia and New Zealand won their bid to become cohosts of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, which would be the first time the tournament was held with thirty-two teams in competition. This also marked the first time that more than one nation would host the tournament. Qualifying tournaments were held in a number of countries during the years leading up to 2023. Eight countries, including Morocco, Ireland, Vietnam, and Zambia, made their Women's World Cup debut in July 2023. This time, Spain beat England in the final round, with a score of 1–0, to secure the World Cup trophy. The following year, reports indicated that FIFA was considering further tournament team number expansion.

Overview

The FIFA Women's World Cup is held every four years, and teams qualify for the competition through a complex qualification system that varies by region, as determined by FIFA’s six member confederations. Host nations automatically qualify, with competitive formats determining the other participants. Five of the six international member confederations use existing regional championship tournaments to advance high-performing teams to the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) being the only body to sanction a stand-alone World Cup qualification competition. The tournament typically draws a wide pool of contenders; for example, during the qualifying tournaments for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, 172 countries vied for the tournament's thirty-two spots. Once the thirty-two-team field is determined, FIFA holds a randomized draw to divide the participating countries into six four-team groups.

Each FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament begins with a group stage, in which each country plays three ninety-minute matches—one against each other team in its group. Teams earn three points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss. Extra time is not used during the group stage; if two teams are tied after ninety minutes, the game is considered a draw. The top two teams in each group automatically advance to the knockout stage, with four third-place teams joining them to create a sixteen-team field for the tournament’s single-elimination phase. Given that point totals are often tied at the conclusion of the group stage, FIFA uses a series of tiebreakers to determine the teams that advance to the knockout stage. The most important such tiebreaker is goal differential—the difference between total goals scored and total goals surrendered during round-robin play.

Teams are seeded for the knockout stage based on their performance during the group stage, setting up a single-elimination tournament. During the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shootouts are used to settle tie games. If two teams are tied after ninety minutes, they play two fifteen-minute periods known as extra time. Five-shot penalty shootouts follow extra time if the score remains tied. If a team loses a game during the knockout stage, it is eliminated from the tournament. The lone exception applies to the semifinals, in which the losing teams advance to a third-place match to determine which country wins the bronze. The team that wins the final earns gold, and the losing team takes silver.

Some observers and athletes have criticized the size of the prize pool for the FIFA Women’s World Cup. This criticism reached a fever pitch following the 2019 tournament; that year, the total purse of the FIFA Women's World Cup was $30 million, including $4 million for the winning team. By comparison, the 2018 men’s FIFA World Cup tournament had a total purse of approximately $400 million, with world champions France earning a $38 million payout. Some argued the gap between the purses represented a clear example of gender-based pay discrimination, while others countered that the men’s tournament generated far more revenue at that point, justifying its much larger purse.

In response to this criticism, in 2019 the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, proposed doubling the purse of the FIFA Women's World Cup for the tournament's 2023 iteration. Discussions on the size of the 2023 purse continued throughout 2022; many executives within FIFA remained committed to at least doubling the purse from $30 million to $60 million, while some proposed increasing it to as much as $100 million. They argued that this would bring the Women's World Cup prize closer in line with the men's World Cup prize, which totaled $442 million during the 2022 men's tournament, which was held in Qatar. In the lead-up to the 2023 Women's World Cup, which ultimately brought in record revenues and attendance, FIFA announced a new distribution model for performance-based earnings that involved paying every player participating from the group stage on, and the total purse amount for federations was reported to be around $152 million.

Bibliography

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