FIFA announced today that the Council has unanimously agreed to expand the number of teams in the 2023 Women’s World Cup from 24 to 32 teams.
This will affect the bidding process, which was already underway based on a 24-team tournament. Bids were originally supposed to be submitted by October 4, 2019, but will now be due in December of 2019, with the host announced in May 2020. This will give the host nation approximately just over three years to prepare for the World Cup, as opposed to the four years and two months that France had to prepare for 2019, and the similar length of time Canada had to prepare for 2015, when the tournament expanded from 16 to 24 teams.