U.S. Soccer and Mexico to Express Interest in Co-Hosting 2027 Women’s World Cup

Leadership from U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) have announced they that have jointly submitted letter to FIFA expressing their interest in co-hosting the 2027 Women’s World Cup in both nations.  

FIFA set a April 19th, 2023 deadline for global federations to submit a statement of interest, and then their respective intent to submit a ‘Bidding Agreement’ by May 19, 2023.

U.S. Soccer and the FMF will make more information available on their combined bid available around that date. 

Should FIFA award the United States and Mexico the bid to co-host the World Cup in 2027, it will produce a first in the Northwest Hemisphere, back-to-back World Cup Tournaments, as the U.S., Mexico and Canada will co-host the Men’s World Cup Tournament in 2026.

The United States has hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup twice- once in 1999 and again 2003.

The United States Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) won the tournament in historic fashion in 1999. The overall turnout broke attendance and viewing records, and escorted in a new era for the women’s game and its fandom, globally. According to FIFA, spectator figures topped 660,000, the media numbered near 2,500.

During the 1999 tournament, Foxborough, Massachusetts, East Rutherford, New Jersey, Landover, Maryland, Chicago Illinois, Portland, Oregon, as well as Palo Alto, San Jose, and Los Angeles, California hosted matches.

All 32 games were broadcast live on national television, and an estimated 40 million viewers in the U.S. alone watched the Lady Yanks capture their second World Cup title over China in a sold-out Rose Bowl in Pasadens, California, instantly turning into iconic team and thrilled tens of millions of young and old Americans, alike.

Away from the pitch, the USWNT became the sports media story of the year and catalyzed the fledgling program into the international powerhouse that the team is today. Ranked first in the FIFA table, the USWNT has been drawing capacity crowds in numerous North American venues in recent years.

In 2003, the USWNT placed third in the behind Sweden and Germany in what is considered the world’s largest women’s sporting event.

Prior to holding in tournaments, U.S. Soccer officials in Chicago had just three month to organize the competition after the tournament was abruptly moved from China PR due to the SARS epidemic that besieged the Republic.

Again, Foxboro, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Columbus, Ohio, Portland, Oregon and metro Los Angeles served as the host cities

Mexico has never hosted a Women’s World Cup, but the recent growth of the Liga MX Femenil has been very impressive in terms of attendance and quality of play with Concacaf contests.

Assuming the U.S. Soccer-FMF bid is received by FIFA’s Bid Evaluation Task Force next month, it will begin evaluating of all the submitted bids from around the world. Up to three will be selected by the FIFA Council with the FIFA Congress then voting in an open forum.

Each bidder will be required to appoint a bid compliance and ethics officer to monitor their compliance of the stringent FIFA bidding process.

During the 2023 FIFA World Cup Tournament in New Zealand and Australia, a bid workshop and observer program will take place. Then the countries will be required to submit their official bids to FIFA on December 8th 2023.

 Thereafter, in February, 2024, FIFA will start to conduct on-site inspection visits within the bidding countries, and will publish the FIFA bid evaluation report in May.