Women's World Cup 2023: 11 direct slots for European teams for the first 32-team edition

11 national teams from the UEFA zone will have "direct slots" in the Women's World Cup 2023, the first edition with 32 participants (instead of 24), announced FIFA after a meeting of the Bureau of the Council on 24/12/2020.

The global body said it had been working "closely with the confederations to formulate a proposal for the allocation of slots for the 2023 edition" since the decision taken on 31/07/2019 to increase the number of teams in the final tournament to 32 (as for the men's event) "following the amazing success of the 2019 edition" and in order to "continue to foster the growth of women's football."

29 of the 32 places were allocated to the six confederations (see below). "The two host countries, Australia and New Zealand, will automatically qualify for the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023, and their slots have been taken directly from the quotas allocated to their confederations, namely the AFC and the OFC respectively," said the international federation.

The three remaining places will be allocated following a play-off tournament (see below) in which 10 teams, including one…