HARRISON, NJ – JULY 13: Members of the 1999 United States Ladies’s Nationwide Crew increase the World Cup trophy earlier than a recreation between Mexico and USWNT at Purple Bull Area on July 13, 2024 in Harrison, New Jersey. (Picture by Brad Smith/ISI Images/USSF/Getty Pictures for USSF)
(Brad Smith/ISI Images/USSF by way of Getty Pictures)
U.S. Soccer will bid unopposed for the 2031 Ladies’s World Cup, and the “path” is evident for the US to host the event, FIFA president Gianni Infantino mentioned Thursday.
Technically, the U.S. nonetheless should “win” a vote at subsequent yr’s FIFA Congress, a gathering of the world’s 211 nationwide soccer federations. However that vote will likely be a foregone conclusion and doubtless a charade, that awarded the 2030 and 2034 males’s World Cups to and to .
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The one unknown is whether or not the U.S. bid will embody proposals to carry a small handful of video games in different international locations all through North and Central America and the Caribbean. that U.S. Soccer and its counterparts all through the CONCACAF area have been discussing a so-called “regional bid.”
Infantino, talking at a gathering of European soccer officers, confirmed that the bidwould be the one one for 2031, and mentioned that the it “is from the US of America and probably another CONCACAF members collectively.”
The overwhelming majority of the video games, although, will likely be held within the U.S. — simply 5 years after are held within the U.S.
Canada and Mexico, with 10 video games apiece, are co-hosts of that 2026 males’s event. They and/or others, akin to Jamaica and Costa Rica, may share facet levels on the girls’s event in 2031. However all the primary levels will likely be within the States.
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Particulars will likely be hashed out over the approaching months. The U.S. Soccer Federation will define its imaginative and prescient in an official bid ebook by the top of the yr. However reasonably than competing in opposition to different potential host nations, it is going to be negotiating with FIFA, soccer’s international governing physique, which owns and operates the Ladies’s World Cup.
FIFA may also negotiate with U.S. cities and stadiums, and ultimately choose round a dozen venues for the 2031 event. Lots of the could possibly be on the 2031 program; however, individuals aware of the planning advised Yahoo Sports activities, others are additionally eager to be concerned.
A number of the 2026 host cities and stadiums have been . These frustrations contributed to the — which finally went to Brazil, by way of a FIFA vote final spring.
Over the 11 months since that call, nevertheless, officers at U.S. Soccer, FIFA, and elsewhere have come nearer to settlement on what “an built-in partnership mannequin that brings host cities, stadiums, companions and FIFA collectively, permitting the ecosystem to collectively faucet into better financial advantages and drive the ladies’s recreation ahead” — reasonably than the present mannequin, which permits FIFA to reap most of these advantages.
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FIFA’s confidence in these negotiations, and within the monetary potential of the U.S. market, led its ruling council and its president, Gianni Infantino, to basically rig the 2031 bidding course of in America’s favor. After opaque discussions, and with obscure justifications, FIFA introduced in early March that ; solely international locations from Europe and Africa can be eligible to host the 2035 version; and so they solely had till March 31 at 5 p.m. ET to formally specific their curiosity in bidding.
Three days after that deadline, FIFA nonetheless had not commented on which international locations expressed . However Infantino mentioned Thursday: “We obtained one bid for ’31 and one bid, legitimate bid, I ought to add, for ’35.”
The 2031 bid is from the U.S., and the 2035 bid from the UK — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Eire.
Due to this fact, though South Africa had publicly expressed curiosity in bidding for the 2031 event, and Spain final month had publicly expressed curiosity within the 2035 event, the way forward for the Ladies’s World Cup is all however determined.
“The trail is there for the Ladies’s World Cup to be happening in ’31 and ’35 in some nice international locations and a few nice nations to spice up much more the ladies’s soccer motion,” Infantino mentioned.