The first Women’s Football Club World Cup “should bring together 16 teams” in January-February 2026, in a still unknown host country, the FIFA Council decided on Wednesday ahead of its 74th Congress in Bangkok.
This new women’s competition will be held every four years, just like the Men’s Club World Cup expanded to 32 teams, the first edition of which is scheduled from June 15 to July 13, 2025 in the United States.
“Further details will follow in due course,” continues Fifa, which had decided on the principle of this tournament in December 2022, in accordance with its long-standing strategy to invest more heavily in club football.
Furthermore, “to facilitate the continued global development of women’s clubs and based on the requests of the confederations”, “it was also proposed that an additional women’s club competition be organised” in years without a Club World Cup starting of 2027, adds the instance.
The FIFA executive has at the same time adopted the women’s international calendar for the period 2026-2029, reducing the international windows from six to five to promote “the rest of the players”, limit travel and less disrupt the championships.
On the men’s side, the overloaded international calendar was once again the subject of tensions this week with the global players’ union Fifpro and the World Association of Leagues, who ordered Fifa to review the calendar for the 2025 Club World Cup under penalty of legal proceedings. .
“We reject any suggestion that Fifa would in any way impose the international calendar on the football community without adequate consultation or to comply with its own commercial strategy,” the Fifa secretary general responded. , the Swede Mattias Grafström – formally appointed on Wednesday by the Council, after having acted since October 2023 for the resigning former N°2, the Senegalese Fatma Samoura.