FIFA reveals 32-team allocation for 2023 Women’s World Cup

Following the success of the 2019 edition, the decision was taken last year to expand the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ to 32 teams and thus continue to foster the growth of women’s football.

FIFA has since worked closely with the confederations to formulate a proposal for the allocation of slots and the Bureau of the FIFA Council has confirmed the following berths for the 2023 edition:

Direct slot allocation (29 of the 32 participation slots)

• 6 direct slots for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
• 4 direct slots for Confederation of African Football (CAF)
• 4 direct slots for Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf)
• 3 direct slots for South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL)
• 1 direct slot for the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and
• 11 direct slots for Union of European Football Associations (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.