Lausanne (AFP)

Fifa on Thursday designated Australia and New Zealand to jointly organize the Women's World Cup-2023, the format of which will drop from 24 to 32 teams, the world football body said.

"Congratulations to the federations of Australia and New Zealand, you will organize the World-2023 women", announced Fifa on its Twitter account, after meeting of the 37 members of its Council by videoconference.

The dossier presented by Australia and New Zealand was preferred to that of Colombia, the last other candidacy still in the running after the recent withdrawals from Brazil and Japan. This 9th world women will be disputed in July-August 2023 in seven Australian cities and five of New Zealand with a final planned in Sydney.

The tournament will be played in July-August 2020 in seven Australian cities and five in New Zealand with a final scheduled in Sydney.

It is the first time that a Women's World Cup has been organized by two countries, moreover belonging to two separate confederations, Australia having been attached to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) since 2006, New Zealand belonging to the Oceania Confederation.

The Australian selection, 7th in the Fifa ranking, reached the quarterfinals of the world tournament three times in 2007, 2011 and 2015. New Zealand occupies a more modest 23rd place in the world.

This joint candidacy of the Australian and New Zealand federations was a big favorite as the evaluation report published on June 10 placed it clearly in the lead, with an average score of 4.1 out of 5, against 2 , 8 to Colombia. Then still in the running, Japan had obtained the score of 3.9 out of 5.

The southern candidacy "offers a range of quality options in terms of sports and general infrastructure. It also seems to be the most favorable from a commercial point of view," justified the evaluation committee.

- Colombia turned down--

The evaluation report, however, raised serious reservations regarding the Colombian file.

The first black spot, according to the report, is that infrastructure "meets the minimum requirements for investment" but "there is a clear risk that the necessary improvements will not be made".

Another major concern for Fifa is security because "although the terrorist threat has dropped significantly, doubts remain as to the potential impact of crime on the competition's stakeholders". These reservations had raised criticisms of the South American Confederation (Conmebol).

This decision somewhat erases the disappointment suffered by Australia in 2010 when, against all odds, Qatar had been designated for the organization of the Men's World Cup-2022. Australia had it been eliminated on the 1st ballot when suspicions of corruption hover around this vote.

The last edition of the Women's World Cup, disputed in 2019 in France, was won by the United States, winners in the final of the Netherlands (2-0).

Only four nations have won the trophy so far, namely the United States (4 wins), Germany (2), Norway and Japan (1).

Australia has already organized major international competitions with the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 and those in Sydney in 2000 and hosted the first Rugby World Cup in 1987 jointly with New Zealand. It again hosted the tournament in 2003. New Zealand hosted it in 2011.

© 2020 AFP