The FIFA council, which met this week, has approved that from next season onwards, some matches in national competitions may be played beyond the countries that “own” the league. Previously, FIFA had always been reticent about this decision. While the federations of each country took the super cups to different parts of the world, such as Spain, which since 2019 has been playing it in Saudi Arabia.
Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA is now open to the possibility of championships such as LaLiga or the Premier League playing their matches outside their borders. Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, has had the idea of holding matches outside Spain for many years and the Premier League has a project to take its matches to the United States, Brazil or Indonesia.
Antonio Rudiger and Lamine Yamal (Jose Breton/NurPhoto/Shutterstock)
MORE DETAILS OF THE MEETING
The FIFA Council met in Bangkok (Thailand) this week ahead of the 74th FIFA Congress. Important decisions, such as the one mentioned above, were taken during the session, but mainly those related to the future of women’s soccer, whose international calendar was unanimously approved.
Among the decisions regarding women’s soccer, it was approved that the first FIFA Women’s Club World Cup will be held in January or February 2026, will have 16 teams and will be played every four years. It was also approved that another women’s competition will be organized in the years when there is no Women’s Club World Cup.
HOST CITY FOR THE 2027 WOMEN’S WORLD CUP
At the meeting, the different bids to host the World Cup were put on the table. In total there are two bids, a joint bid by the Belgian Football Association, the Dutch Football Association and the German Football Association, and the other bid by the Brazilian Football Confederation.
OTHER DECISIONS
The council meeting also resulted in other decisions, such as the decision to hold the Women’s Futsal World Cup in the Philippines in 2025. The places for the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco were also allocated, with 9 places for Asian teams, 10 places for African teams, CONCACAF will have 8 teams, CONMEBOL 7, the Oceania Football Confederation 3 and UEFA 11.
Another decision was that Qatar, at the request of the Qatar Football Federation, will host the FIFA Arab Cup in 2025, 2029 and 2033.
