In what was initially seen as a major step ahead for the worldwide promotion of ladies’s soccer, FIFA President Gianni Infantino introduced the inaugural Girls’s Membership World Cup, set to be held in January-February 2026. Nevertheless, with lower than a yr remaining earlier than the scheduled kickoff, FIFA is reportedly making ready to make a controversial resolution concerning the competitors.
Throughout its Might 2024 assembly in Bangkok, the FIFA Council confirmed plans for a 16-team event to be held each 4 years, set to happen in the course of the European home season, between the Girls’s Champions League group phases and knockout rounds. Infantino expressed his enthusiasm for the event on the time:
“To this date, we don’t have a world membership competitors for ladies. But we’re asking (males’s) golf equipment to type girls’s golf equipment all around the world… Because of this, (we wish) to have a 16-team FIFA Girls’s Membership World Cup in January/February 2026,” Infantino acknowledged. Nevertheless, with no host nation introduced and demanding logistical particulars nonetheless unresolved, FIFA is now anticipated to delay the event.
In response to The Athletic, FIFA is anticipated to postpone subsequent yr’s Girls’s Membership World Cup as a result of lack of a confirmed host nation, event format, and qualification standards. Almost ten months after its announcement, the event stays and not using a clear construction, which has additionally hindered the securing of business and broadcast offers.
Whereas FIFA has but to launch an official assertion, studies point out that the choice is anticipated to be formalized in the course of the subsequent FIFA Council assembly on Wednesday.
What’s subsequent for the Girls’s Membership World Cup?
With the 16-team format postponed, FIFA is reportedly contemplating a smaller-scale Girls’s Membership World Cup in 2025, that includes 4 to 6 groups. This might mirror the Males’s Intercontinental Cup mannequin, together with golf equipment from totally different federations worldwide.
As for the unique 16-team event, FIFA is anticipated to delay its launch by at the very least 12 months. Officers imagine that suspending the occasion and holding a smaller competitors within the meantime will create the mandatory time and house for stakeholders to correctly construction and commercialize the event earlier than its full-scale debut.
