Australia and New Zealand will host the 2023 Women’s World Cup in 2023 after a vote undertaken during a video conference of world federation FIFA’s governing council.
This will be the first cross-confederation staging in FIFA history since Australia is a member of the Asian confederation while New Zealand is within Oceania. The voting margin was a decisive 22-13.
That was far clearer than had been suggested on the eve of the vote when the Colombians and South American confederation CONMEBOL lobbied hard to obtain the support of the European members of the council.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino will be relieved. The joint bid from Australia and New Zealand had emerged as superior among the remaining challengers in FIFA’s evaluation report.
A vote for Colombia would have been political and been a major setback for FIFA’s organisational and administrative reforms.The 200-plus page evaluation document had scored Australia-New Zealand with 4.1 points from a maximum five in…
Source: Guardian Newspaper
