2023 Women's World Cup

[Diouf]

CONCACAF today published the plans for their 2023 World Cup qualification; the first confederation to do so, I believe. However, there still does not seem to be any finalization of the slot distribution.

The first group stage in CONCACAF qualifiers will include all participating teams, except USA and Canada. The teams will be divided into six groups, where the group winner goes through. Their plan is six groups of five; if more than 32 teams from CONCACAF enter the qualification, there will be a play-in before the group stage. If less teams participate, I assume they will reduce the number of teams in some groups. In 2019, 30 teams participated. In the five-team groups, teams will face each other once, home or away. The matches are to be played in November 2021 and April 2022.

The six group winners + Canada and USA will play a Centralized Finals Event in July 2022, where it will be decided who qualifies for the 2023 World Cup. The teams will be split into two groups of four. In 2019, CONCACAF had 3,5 spots, so I'm guessing maybe 4,5 spots for 2023.

CONCACAF also announced the introduction of a Women's Nations League in 2023, which sounds like very good news to develop football. Their two olympic qualifiers, likely USA and Canada, won't take part, but for all the other teams it will give some valuable national team matches in a region with few such games.




https://www.concacaf.com/en/article/con ... federation

[Lorric]

They always qualify teams by way of that CONCACAF Women's Championship, so it's safe for them to do this now. Whatever allocation CONCACAF gets can be easily handled.

The qualifying groups are a big change though. Before, Mexico also auto-qualified and it was regional qualifying to send two from Central America and three from the Caribbean.

I don't think they should have put Mexico into qualifying, whoever gets grouped with them is just screwed.

Women's Nations League, UEFA should be doing that.

[Soccerkid999]

They always qualify teams by way of that CONCACAF Women's Championship, so it's safe for them to do this now. Whatever allocation CONCACAF gets can be easily handled.

The qualifying groups are a big change though. Before, Mexico also auto-qualified and it was regional qualifying to send two from Central America and three from the Caribbean.

I don't think they should have put Mexico into qualifying, whoever gets grouped with them is just screwed.

Women's Nations League, UEFA should be doing that.

Women’s nations league will be introduced in 2023-24 i believe

[Soccerkid999]

* for Uefa that is

[Soccerkid999]

What do you think the slot allocation will be?

[Diouf]

FIFA has a christmas present for us all: The slot allocation for the 2023 World Cup!
And it includes an eloborate intercontinental play-off system

Overall, I get the allocation to the following numbers:

AFC 6.6 slots (+1.6)
CAF 4.6 (+1.6)
Concacaf 4.6 (+1.1)
CONMEBOL 3.6 (+1.1)
OFC 1.3 (+0.3)
UEFA 11.3 (+2.3)

I can live with that. UEFA should have a strong chance of getting 12 teams through to the competition.
No full extra spot for OFC, so likely no Fiji/Papua New Guinea etc. at the World Cup with ensured double-digit losses.
The playoff-format is certainly an interesting addition. As I read, the four seeded teams will be ranked, so the highest and second-highest ranked seed get a spot in the 3-team playoff tree, while the third and fourth-highest ranked teams will be together in the 4-team playoff tree.
I don't know if it was really necessary to have the maximum of one seed per confederation. In the worst case, the third highest ranked of the teams could end up in the path of the highest ranked (likely UEFA) team.

Direct slot allocation (29 of the 32 participation slots)

6 direct slots for the AFC
4 direct slots for CAF
4 direct slots for Concacaf
3 direct slots for CONMEBOL;
1 direct slot for the OFC; and
11 direct slots for UEFA.

The two host countries, Australia and New Zealand, will automatically qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™, and their slots have been taken directly from the quotas allocated to their confederations, namely the AFC and the OFC respectively.

Play-off tournament slot allocation (3)

The three remaining slots will be decided through a ten-team play-off tournament with the following play-off slot allocation:

2 play-off slots for the AFC;
2 play-off slots for CAF;
2 play-off slots for Concacaf;
2 play-off slots for CONMEBOL;
1 play-off slot for the OFC; and
1 play-off slot for UEFA.

Play-off tournament format

Four teams will be seeded in the tournament based on the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking prior to the play-off draw, with a maximum of one seeded team per confederation.

In Group 1, comprising three teams, seed 1 will play for a place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup against the winners of the knockout game involving the two unseeded teams in the group.
In Group 2, comprising three teams, seed 2 will play for a place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup against the winners of the knockout game involving the two unseeded teams in the group.
In Group 3, comprising four teams, seeds 3 and seed 4 will play against the two unseeded teams in the group, with the two winners then playing for a place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Teams from the same confederation will not be permitted to be drawn in the same group.

The play-off tournament will be used as a test event in Australia and New Zealand for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, and both hosts will be invited to participate in friendly matches against the teams in Group 1 and Group 2, thereby ensuring that all teams play two matches during the play-off tournament.

https://www.fifa.com/news/update-on-fif ... mpetitions

[Diouf]

So in 2019, the five extra direct slots would have gone to:
Philippines (AFC), Mali (CAF), Panama (Concacaf), Switzerland (UEFA) and Belgium (UEFA)

The playoff tournament would be something like:

Playoff-tree 1:
Denmark vs Winner of Ghana - Fiji

Playoff tree 2
Colombia vs. Winner of Costa Rica - Jordan

Playoff tree 3
Winner of Mexico - Paraguay vs. Winner of Vietnam - Zambia

So the expected four seeding pots at the World Cup would have been:

Pot 1: France, USA, Germany, England, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Japan
Pot 2: Sweden, Brazil, Spain, Norway, South Korea, China, Italy, Denmark
Pot 3: Switzerland, New Zealand, Scotland, Belgium, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand, Argentina
Pot 4: Chile, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa, Jamaica, Panama, Philippines, Mali

[Lorric]

Thank you Diouf. I've waited a long time to see this.

It's still too low for UEFA. However, I didn't think our pathetic UEFA leadership would manage to do any better than 2, so for them to get 2 and a playoff is a pleasant surprise. But only 1 playoff is really annoying. If we had 2, I'd expect both teams to deal handily with their opposition every edition, building a case for more spots. One team can't do that, especially if someone else is managing to qualify both teams, they'd be in line to take from others first. But maybe if our teams largely dominate the tournament, they can.

Asia has no depth. Their teams should both routinely fail. OFC's team will be obliterated. CONCACAF is somewhat above Asia here I think, and might be able to compete with Africa and CONMEBOL for spots. Africa's Cup of Nations has competitive teams in it, they might be the front runners outside of UEFA, it looks like there's more of a gulf in CONMEBOL than Africa. UEFA should always be seeded and always prevail.

Mexico being in the hypothetical playoffs for the last WC is a freak occurrence. They should always be auto qualifying.

[Soccerkid888]

Thank you Diouf. I've waited a long time to see this.

It's still too low for UEFA. However, I didn't think our pathetic UEFA leadership would manage to do any better than 2, so for them to get 2 and a playoff is a pleasant surprise. But only 1 playoff is really annoying. If we had 2, I'd expect both teams to deal handily with their opposition every edition, building a case for more spots. One team can't do that, especially if someone else is managing to qualify both teams, they'd be in line to take from others first. But maybe if our teams largely dominate the tournament, they can.

Asia has no depth. Their teams should both routinely fail. OFC's team will be obliterated. CONCACAF is somewhat above Asia here I think, and might be able to compete with Africa and CONMEBOL for spots. Africa's Cup of Nations has competitive teams in it, they might be the front runners outside of UEFA, it looks like there's more of a gulf in CONMEBOL than Africa. UEFA should always be seeded and always prevail.

Mexico being in the hypothetical playoffs for the last WC is a freak occurrence. They should always be auto qualifying.

I think it is very fair, what is the Uefa Qualifiers format? I still think 32 teams is too much for women’s WC.

[Diouf]

The UEFA qualifiers will begin this September according to the below from the Welsh Federation.
So hopefully there will be some information soon. And I guess it could make sense with a draw in the spring, either in March after the end of the Euro qualifiers group stage, or in April after the playoffs.
With the start already in September, I guess there won't be pre-qualifiers. And I assume we will have at least the 48 sides from this Euro cycle. With 48 sides, you could have 8 groups of six, but I hope a few more teams will join this time. So my guess would be 9 or 10 groups with the group winners qualifiying, and then a playoff format among 2nd placed teams for the remaining 2+1 or 1+1 spots. For 2019, the 4 best 2nd placed teams had a playoff for 1 spot, but then there were only 7 groups. With 9 or 10 groups, they might let more 2nd placed teams into the playoffs.

"The FAW will now begin a thorough recruitment process for a new National Team Manager as Cymru will look to prepare for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifying campaign, which will commence in September."

https://www.faw.cymru/en/news/faw-state ... yne-ludlow

[Diouf]

AFC published details on their World Cup qualification format today. The Asian Cup 2022 in India will determine the AFC qualifiers. The tournament will be played 20 January - 6 February 2022 with 12 teams. There will be three groups of four teams, and then quarterfinals. With five direct spots + two playoff spots + Australia very likely to be in the quarter finals, then you will be secured at least a playoff spot by going through to the quarter finals. I would assume that the losing quarter finalists would then play to find out who gets a direct spot.

Hosts India will get one of the 12 spots, and the top three teams from 2018, Japan, Australia & China, have also received a direct spot in the tournament. The remaining participating sides will then play qualification for the remaining 8 spots. In 2018, 22 teams took part in the Asian Cup + qualifiers; I would hope for several more this time. Perhaps FIFA could at least have a word with Qatar; it would be suitable if a World Cup host actually bothered to field a women's team as well. The qualification will take place from 13-25 September 2021 in a centralized format.

https://www.the-afc.com/competitions/af ... -confirmed

[Lorric]

AFC published details on their World Cup qualification format today. The Asian Cup 2022 in India will determine the AFC qualifiers. The tournament will be played 20 January - 6 February 2022 with 12 teams. There will be three groups of four teams, and then quarterfinals. With five direct spots + two playoff spots + Australia very likely to be in the quarter finals, then you will be secured at least a playoff spot by going through to the quarter finals. I would assume that the losing quarter finalists would then play to find out who gets a direct spot.

Again, Asia make intelligent changes to their World Cup qualifying format, and integrate the Asian Cup into it. Of course, the Asian Cup was already integrated, but they've managed to benefit their tournament by having stakes for matches for knocked out teams (if they have the matches, but I'd be shocked if they don't), increased stakes on group stage performance due to the importance of winning your quarter final and getting 4 more teams involved, when they could have simply done nothing and had their 8 teams' group stage standings decide the teams. This also should help motivate some of the other teams in the region to grow and get ambitious, more World Cup places, more Asian Cup places.

[Diouf]

Aparently the Welsh FA is the go-to place for news about UEFA's women competitions.
In this news story, they inform us that the UEFA draw will be on 30 April, so after the EURO playoffs.

https://www.faw.cymru/en/news/cymru-squ ... ning-camp/

[Diouf]

UEFA have published the qualification system to determine the 11 direct qualifiers and 1 team for the intercontinental playoffs.

48 teams will take part in the main group stage, in 8 groups of six teams. There does not seem to be a play-in tournament for the small teams, so presumably it's just the 48 highest ranked teams, who wants to participate. And they are using UEFA team coefficient to seed teams, not FIFA ranking In the recent Euros, 48 teams (incl. England hosts) took part, so it could be that only the same teams are participating this time.

The group winners qualify directly for the World Cup, while the second placed teams enter the playoff. The four playoff winners will then be ranked to determine who gets the three remaining direct spots, and who will have to go to the intercontinental playoff. This ranking consists of the group stage results + playoff results.

The group stage matches start in September 2021. The UEFA playoffs are in October 2022.

UEFA has also released the ranking for the 30 April draw. And since the regulations stipulate that the Euro playoffs do no count, the ranking is final. Denmark is just outside the top seeds in this format with 8 groups
Pots if top 48 teams join:

Pot 1: Netherlands, England, Germany, France, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Italy
Pot 2: Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, Scotland, Russia, Finland
Pot 3: Portugal, Wales, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Ireland, Poland, Slovenia, Romania
Pot 4: Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Hungary, Belarus, Croatia, Greece
Pot 5: Albania, North Macedonia, Israel, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Malta, Kosovo, Kazahkstan
Pot 6: Moldova, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Latvia, Montenegro, Lithuania, Estonia
Back-up teams: Luxembourg, Andorra, Armenia, Bulgaria, Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, San Marino


https://documents.uefa.com/r/Regulation ... tem-Online

https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/02 ... anking.pdf

[Diouf]

Host cities announced. Two different stadiums in Sydney

Adelaide
Auckland/Tāmaki Makaurau
Brisbane
Dunedin / Ōtepoti
Hamilton / Kirikiriroa
Melbourne
Perth
Sydney
Wellington / Te Whanganui-a-Tara

https://twitter.com/FIFAWWC/status/1377350061252866052