Who has qualified for the Women’s World Cup 2023?
The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup gets underway this summer and 32 teams will compete for the first time in the tournament’s 31-year history – up from 24 in 2015 and 2019.
Another WWC landmark sees Australia and New Zealand become the first co-hosts after their joint bid successfully beat Colombia in the final round of voting when things were decided in 2020. Other bids from Brazil and Japan were withdrawn before the last stage of the process.
It is even the first Women’s World Cup in the southern hemisphere and the first for either men or women to be held across multiple confederations due to Australia being a member of AFC, representing Asia, and New Zealand being part of OFC for Oceania.
The qualification process began in September 2021 and has whittled more than 170 countries from six confederations around the world down to the final 32.
Australia and New Zealand both automatically qualified as soon as their bid was picked by the voting panel. The former are at their eighth consecutive World Cup but will be hoping home advantage will help them get beyond the quarter-finals for the first time. The latter, meanwhile, have never progressed past the group stage in four previous World Cup appearances.
Europe will have the biggest representation at the World Cup, with 11 automatic places making up more than a third of the whole tournament. The nine group winners from qualifying were awarded passage to Australia and New Zealand, with Sweden, Spain and France the first teams in.
They were soon followed by Denmark, reaching their first World Cup since 2007. Norway, Germany, England, Italy and Netherlands all followed in September 2022 when the group stage finished.
The UEFA play-offs contested by the nine group runners-up earned the Republic of Ireland their first ever World Cup place, with Switzerland also making the cut.
There is no automatic place for the World Cup holders, meaning the United States had to earn their ticket just like everyone else. They did just that via the 2022 edition of the CONCACAF W Championship, the tournament which also served as a qualifying competition for the region.
Automatic World Cup qualification was the prize for the four teams that progressed from the group stage to the knockout rounds. That also included Canada, Costa Rica and Jamaica.
There would be other opportunities for lower ranked teams in the inter-confederation play-offs.
Similarly, CONMEBOL’s representatives at the 2023 World Cup were decided by the 2022 Copa America Femenina. With three places up for grabs to South American teams, they went to the two finalists: Brazil and Colombia, plus the third place play-off winner: Argentina.
Brazil have been to every World Cup since the inaugural tournament in 1991. But this will be a fourth appearance for Argentina, who are yet to win a World Cup game, and a third for Colombia.
The first countries other than the co-hosts to book their World Cup places were all from Asia, with the AFC Women’s Asian Cup in January and February 2022 doubling as a qualification tournament. Japan, South Korea, China and Philippines all got through by virtue of reaching the AFC semi-finals.
Vietnam claimed Asia’s fifth World Cup place through a special round-robin play-off. Both they and Philippines will be at their first ever World Cup this summer.
Read the latest Women’s World Cup news here
Africa was another continent that used its regional championship for World Cup qualifying, with the four semi-finalists from the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations booking those places.
Morocco will be making their World Cup debut, as will Zambia. They are joined by perennial qualifiers Nigeria, as well as South Africa, who made their first appearance in 2019.
The inter-confederation play-offs took place as recently as February 2023, before the group stage draw had actually been made, and offered 10 countries from all over the world a second opportunity to reach the tournament. In total, there were three extra places available.
The teams who took part in the play-offs, split into three separate mini-tournaments, were those who had just missed out on qualifying automatically in each confederation. All three winners – Portugal, Haiti and Panama – are World Cup debutants in 2023, taking full advantage of the increased capacity.