FIFA Women’s Club World Cup delayed to 2028; new Champions Cup launched

FIFA has confirmed that the Women’s Club World Cup, originally planned to debut in 2026, will now launch in 2028, with world soccer’s governing body announcing that an inaugural FIFA Women’s Champions Cup will now debut in 2026.

The FIFA Council ratified the new tournaments at a meeting on Wednesday.

The Women’s Club World Cup, originally put forward as an idea by FIFA president Gianni Infantino in May 2021 before being confirmed by the FIFA Council in late 2022, is set to include 13 direct qualifiers from across the six confederations and three teams via a play-in. It will take place every four years from 2028 onwards.

For the first edition, UEFA will have five places in the 16-team group stage, with CAF, CONMEBOL, AFC and Concacaf each having two teams earning guaranteed entry. The OFC will have no direct qualifiers.

That is subject to change as the competition develops after the 2028 version. No host or time period has yet been agreed.

The 2026 Women’s Champions Cup will be a six-team tournament and will be hosted by a location in Europe, North America or South America, sources told ESPN. It will feature the winners of each of the confederations’ club championships and is set to take place from Jan. 28 to Feb. 3 2026.

It will become an annual competition for the years in which there is no Women’s Club World Cup.

The winners of the UEFA Women’s Champions League, brand new Concacaf Champions League and Women’s Copa Libertadores will qualify automatically for the semifinals, while the winners of the CAF, AFC and OFC competitions will play each other in two rounds of knockouts in order to reach what FIFA have dubbed the “Final Four” stage.

Meghann Burke, executive director of the NWSL’s Player Association, told ESPN that the organization had concerns over the planning of the new Club World Cup with regards to prize money, sponsorship and scheduling.

“Conceptually, the NWSLPA welcomes the opportunity to answer the question of who the best league in the world is where it needs to be settled: on the field,” she said.

“However, the lack of planning, lack of consideration to workload management and schedule compaction and lack of broadcast or sponsorship considerations, not to mention their failure to adequately fund prize money, compound the problems we are already trying to solve.

“FIFA needs to involve its stakeholders, like the NWSLPA and NWSL, for an event like this to reach its potential. Otherwise, they are hamstringing women’s football yet again like they’ve done since time immemorial.”

ESPN has reached out to global player’s union FIFPRO for comment.

The men’s Club World Cup, which has existed in some guise since 2000, is set to launch in its latest form in the United States in June this year and include 32 teams. It has faced considerable criticism over placing extra demands on an already congested calendar, with FIFPRO launching a legal dispute against world football’s governing body.