{"id":56450,"date":"2025-05-11T07:35:15","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T07:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team"},"modified":"2025-05-11T09:10:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T09:10:03","slug":"fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team","title":{"rendered":"FIFA Move: Afghan refugee women to form new football team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>FIFA has wanted to expand the women\u2019s tournament from 32 teams to match the men\u2019s World Cup which has 48 teams for the first time next year, when the U.S. will co-host with Canada and Mexico. The decision follows one month after FIFA president Gianni Infantino said it had just one candidate bidding for each of the 2031 and 2035 women\u2019s tournaments \u2014 the U.S. followed by the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>FIFA is expected to confirm these two hosts next year. Brazil will host a 32-team Women\u2019s World Cup in 2027. FIFA said the bigger, 104-game tournament with 48 teams \u201cwill significantly broaden representation, offering more nations and players access to elite competition and accelerating investment in women\u2019s football worldwide.\u201d The Women\u2019s World Cup had just 16 teams as recently as the 2011 edition in Germany, 24 teams at each of the next two tournaments in Canada and France, then 32 teams for the first time in 2023 co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>The 2023 edition defied concerns the tournament had grown too fast, would have too many overmatched teams and too many lop-sided results. In 2019, the defending champion U.S. team beat Thailand 13-0 in their opening group-stage game. In 2023, the biggest win was the Netherlands beating Thailand 7-0, and the tournament \u201cset a new standard for global competitiveness,\u201d Infantino said Friday in a statement, because \u201cteams from all confederations won at least one game and teams from five confederations reached the knockout stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The expected expansion plan was welcomed by the global players&#8217; union FIFPRO, which called for \u201cinclusive decision-making and cooperative planning.\u201d \u201cIt is critical that the global development of women\u2019s competitions goes hand in hand with improved labor conditions and the advancement of players, as well as development further down the pyramid,\u201d the Netherlands-based union said. \u201cThis is the only path to true sustainability, expansion, and progress.\u201d In recent years, FIFA has updated and improved contractual protections for players and coaches during pregnancy and after giving birth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Lesotho<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. FIFA has wanted to expand the women\u2019s tournament from 32 teams to match the men\u2019s World Cup which has 48 teams for the first time next year, when the U.S. will co-host with Canada and Mexico. The decision follows one month after FIFA president Gianni Infantino said it had just one candidate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":56449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[5930,90,125,2873,245],"class_list":["post-56450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-afghanistan","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>FIFA Move: Afghan refugee women to form new football team - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"FIFA has wanted to expand the women\u2019s tournament from 32 teams to match the men\u2019s World Cup which has 48 teams for the f ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FIFA Move: Afghan refugee women to form new football team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FIFA has wanted to expand the women\u2019s tournament from 32 teams to match the men\u2019s World Cup which has 48 teams for the f ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-11T07:35:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-05-11T09:10:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/05\/sm_1746935165.138143.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"538\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"FIFA Move: Afghan refugee women to form new football team\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-11T07:35:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-05-11T09:10:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\"},\"wordCount\":349,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2025\/05\/sm_1746935165.138143.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Afghanistan\",\"FIFA\",\"football\",\"Gianni Infantino\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/fifa-move-afghan-refugee-women-to-form-new-football-team\",\"name\":\"FIFA Move: Afghan refugee women to form new football team - 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