The football associations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have officially launched and released more details about their joint bid for the 2035 Women’s World Cup.
If the bid is successful, it would be the first football world cup hosted in the UK since 1966, and the largest single-sport event ever staged in the country.
In April, FIFA president Gianni Infantino revealed that the home nations had submitted the only valid bid for tournament.
It includes 22 proposed stadiums – 16 in England, three in Wales, two in Scotland and one in Northern Ireland – across 15 host cities.
Organisers claim it would be the most accessible tournament ever, with 63 million people living within two hours of a proposed venue.
They predict the tournament would generate 4.5 million ticket sales and have a projected global TV audience of 3.5 billion.
The tournament would involve 104 matches contested by 48 teams over 39 days, with 48 team base camp training sites, 82 venue-specific training sites and 32 FIFA Fan Festival Sites proposed.
In a joint statement, the football associations said: “We are proud of the growth that we’ve driven in recent years across the women’s and girls’ game.”
They added: “A Women’s World Cup in the UK has the power to turbo charge the women’s and girls’ game both in the UK and globally.”
The plans should be ratified by the FIFA Congress in April.
Sarina Wiegman’s England team won the women’s Euros for the first time at Wembley in 2022 – a title they sucessfuly defended this year – and the stadium will be used for the final in July 2035, if approved by FIFA.
As Sky News previously revealed a planned huge new Manchester United stadium has been overlooked for the final, in favour of Wembley. But United’s current Old Trafford ground is in the plans due to a lack of sufficient information about the unbuilt proposed venue.
FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said: “We’re working on how we can keep improving Wembley. We’re incredibly proud of it. We feel it’s one of the best stadia in the world but we’ll keep moving forward.
“We’re looking at some options for redevelopment over the long term.”
Some of the stadiums on the list included in the official bid may change after the construction of new stadiums are completed.
This will be the longest a country has ever had to prepare for the Women’s World Cup, which is expanding from 32 to 48 teams.
The decade provides a long-run up to use the platform to inspire players, coaches and referees to be involved who might not be part of football yet.
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FA director of women’s football Sue Day told Sky News: “It can have such a massive impact for us because everything we’re trying to do, it’s around growing participation, around facilities, around building pathways.”
She said it could drive even more growth in the game in terms of commercial opportunities and the number of people playing.
“They’ll include players who are currently playing internationally, they’ll include other players who probably haven’t even kicked a football yet,” Ms Day added. “That’s the excitement of that.”
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While the FA struggled to attract interest from some English clubs to stage women’s Euro 2022 games, there has been much greater interest in this World Cup.
