FIFA Women's World Cup

 

The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football tournament that is played by women's senior national teams from the members of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) which is the governing body of international football. The tournament has been played every four years, and one year following it. It has been held after the FIFA World Cup since 1991 in the year that the first tournament, formerly known as"the FIFA Women's World Championship, was held in China. In the current format national teams compete for 23 slots during an annual qualification phase. The team of the host nation is automatically enrolled as in the slot 24. The tournament itself, sometimes known as"the" World Cup Finals, is played at venues in that host nation(s) during a time of approximately one month.

Eight FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments have been taken by four national teams. For instance, the United States have won four times and are the current champions , having won it during the tournament of 2019 in France. Other winners include Germany with two titles and Japan and Norway with one each.

Six countries have been host to six countries at the Women's World Cup. China as well as the United States have each hosted the event twice. Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have all held it at least once.

History

The first time there was an Women's World Cup dates back to the year 1970 when the first international tournament being held in Italy in July of 1970. It was followed by another non-official event the following year in Mexico in which Denmark was awarded the title following winning against Mexico at the end of the tournament. In the late 1980s, the Mundialito was played in Italy over four years, with Italy and England winning two titles.

Many nations lifted their ban on women's football during the 1970s, which led to new teams being formed all over Europe in Europe and North America. Following the first women's international tournaments were played within Asia in 1975, and in Europe at the time of 1984 Ellen Wille declared that she was looking for a greater efforts by the FIFA Congress in promoting the women's sport. The first time this was done was in 1988 with the help of an invitational event in China as an experiment to determine if the idea of a women's global World Cup was feasible. Twelve national teams were involved in the tournament - four teams from UEFA and three from AFC Two from CONCACAF and one in CONMEBOL, CAF and OFC. Following the opening game in the competition with China with Canada was watched by over more than 45,000 people, the event was declared a success with attendance of around 20.000. Norway as champions of the tournament, was European champion, lost to Sweden by a score of 1-0 in the final. Brazil took third place after defeating hosts in the penalty shootout. The tournament was judged to be to be a success, and on 30 June FIFA approved the creation of the official World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in the year 1991, this time in China. Twelve teams again competed and this time it was an American victory. United States defeating Norway in the final by 2-1 which included Michelle Akers scoring two goals.

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The 1995 edition of Sweden saw the introduction of an idea of a time-out during the tournament. It was restricted mid-tournament and only occurred during an interruption in the game. The time-out concept was only introduced during one tournament, which was later scrapped. The final match of the 1995 edition witnessed Norway scoring 17 times in their group phase, lose to Germany with a score of 2-0, and win their only trophy. In 1999 an event that was among the top well-known moments of the competition was American player Brandi Chastain's celebration at the end of the match after scoring the Cup's winning penalty against China. She took off her shirt and tossed it over her head (as males do frequently) while showing off her torso with muscle and a sports bra when she screamed. The 1999 final of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California attracted a crowd of 90,185. This was a record for a woman's sporting event.

In 1999 as well as 2003, the Women's World Cups were both held in the United States; in 2003 China was to host the tournament, however the tournament was relocated because of SARS. In compensation, China retained their automatic eligibility to the 2003 World Cup as the host country, and was then automatically selected as the host for this year's FIFA Women's World Cup. Germany was the host for in 2011 the FIFA Women's World Cup, which was decided by a votes in October 2007. In March of 2011, FIFA awarded Canada the rights to host 2015's FIFA Women's World Cup. The 2015 tournament included an increase in the number of teams from 16 teams to 24.

In the year 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, both Formiga from Brazil as well as Homare Sawa from Japan played in their record-breaking sixth World Cup, a feat that was never achieved previously by male or female players. Christie Pearce is the oldest player ever to play in the Women's World Cup match, at 40 years old. In March 2015 FIFA granted France with the rights to host 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup against South Korea.