Four nations have submitted bids for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 – the latest sign that women's football is undergoing a boom.
According to FIFA, the bidding process saw "unprecedented interest" from member associations, with bids from Brazil, Japan, Colombia and a joint bid from New Zealand and Australia making it to the final stage.
FIFA will now implement an assessment process, including inspection visits to the member associations which are expected to take place across January and February 2020.
Once finalised, the evaluation report will be published and all eligible bids will be presented to the FIFA Council, which is set to select the host of the even at its meeting in Addis Ababa in June 2020.
The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 will be the first edition of the women’s showpiece to feature 32 teams.
The 2019 edition of the event, held in France, was deemed "the most successful ever" and led to European governing body UEFA
increasing funding for national associations within Europe."France 2019 was certainly a watershed moment for women’s football, and now it is FIFA’s responsibility to take concrete measures to keep fostering the game’s incredible growth," said FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
"With the FIFA Women’s World Cup generating an unprecedented interest across member associations, we are ensuring that the process to select the hosts is seamless, objective, ethical and transparent.
"By the time the FIFA Council announces the hosts, there should be no doubt whatsoever as to why that choice was made."
