I believe FIFA have been looking for a place in the calendar for more than two years now. Maybe they will do something in 2020, as the 2018/19 calendar is already set ( circular FIFA #1561)
See, this is what I don't really get... The women's calendar isn't any more complicated than the men's calendar is. It shouldn't take them - what is is, running on three or four years now - to find a two-week-or-so period in the calendar to hold a WCWC.
I believe politics have come into play, moving from a Blatter led institution to an Infantino led institution. I mean Infantino has got rid of Tatjana Henni recently who was doing an excellent job.
*blows dust off thread* I couldn't find any other place to mention this and I don't think it deserves its own thread just yet, but: CONCACAF - or, more precisely, UNCAF, one of CONCACAF's historical sub-groups - has revived an old men's club competition the other year and given it to the ladies. We're two years in now, and both 2016 and 2017 saw six clubs compete. The 2016 competition was early summer but the 2017 was late summer; I can't find anything that says a 2018 competition will definitely happen, but I'm hoping it does... This competition could be the first step to making a CONCACAF WCL happen (and thus a FIFA Women's CWC). Or, at the very least, maybe a CONCACAF SuperCup situation of sorts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNCAF_Women's_Interclub_Championship
(from JW Sports1) A FIFA Women’s Club World Cup tournament is one of the ideas tabled last week at the FIFA Executive Summit in Muscat, Oman. The global showpiece is envisioned to comprise 16 teams: six from Europe, four from North/South America, four from Asia/Oceania and two from Africa. One of the qualification methods proposed is the champions of the two top-ranked nations in a confederation qualifying for the Club World Cup. Currently, the two highest ranked African nations are Nigeria and Ghana whose reigning champions are Nasarawa Amazons and Ampem Darkoa, respectively. The proposal comes at a time when club football in Africa is on the rise. Nigeria Women’s Premier League (NWPL) recently partnering with La Liga. In Ghana, the Sanford World Clinic has continued to partner with the Ghana Football Association to sponsor the Women’s FA Cup. Down south, Sasol has extended its sponsorship of the South African SASOL League and national women’s team to 2021. In East Africa, Serengeti Breweries has joined Azam Media as leading sponsors of the Tanzania Women’s Premier League. Regional competitions Meanwhile, the Kenya Women’s Premier League (KWPL) is set to be unified starting the 2018 season. This is a rarity in the continent, as most African women’s leagues are played in an abridged format—mostly two zones with the winners facing off in the national playoffs. There has also been an increase of lower division women’s leagues in the continent. Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda are among nations that have recently launched a lower-tier women’s league. Nations like Togo have also started making strides, launching a first ever women’s championship. Regional competitions have been revived as well with Eastern Africa’s CECAFA Women’s Championship held in 2016. Southern Africa followed suit in 2017 with the COSAFA Women’s Championship. West Africa has now joined the fray, launching the first ever WAFU Women’s Cup scheduled for 14–24 February.
UEFA: 4 best clubs from UWCL 2016/2017 + Champions from Bundesliga and FA WSL 2016/2017 CONCACAF: NWSL Champions 2017 and I guess Liga MX 2017 Champions (cuz of no pro league in Canada) CONMEBOL: pair from final of Copa Libertadores 2017 AFC: Westfield league Champions 2016/2017, Nadeshiko league champions 2017, S. Korea league Champions 2017 (should be N. Korea but is there a working league?) OFC: New Zealand league Champions 2017 CAF: Nigeria league Champions 2017 and Ghana league Champions 2017 as it stands for today: UEFA: Lyon (FRA), PSG (FRA), Manchester City (ENG), Barcelona (ESP), VfL Wolfsburg (GER), Chelsea (ENG) CONCACAF: North Carolina Courage (USA), Guadalajara (MEX) CONMEBOL: Corinthians-Audax (BRA), Colo Colo (CHI) AFC: Melbourne City (AUS), NTV Beleza (JPN), H.S. Red Angels (KOR) OFC: Auckland Football (NZL) CAF: Nasarawa Amazons (NGA), Ampem Darkoa (GHA) Tournament 4 groups with 4 teams. Best 2 from each group advance to play-offs. Draw: Pool A Lyon VfL Wolfsburg NTV Beleza Corinthians-Audax Pool B PSG North Carolina Courage Manchester City Melbourne City Pool C Barcelona Guadalajara Colo Colo Narasawa Amazons Pool D Chelsea H.S Red Angels Auckland Football Ampem Darkoa what you'll think?
16 teams!!! That's insane. And, IMO, probably not workable... If it really is 16 and it's four teams from the Americas overall, I would hope it's two from the USA, the CONMEBOL champ, and one other TBD. I mean, if you're going to do three nations from AFC and one from OFC instead of two from each, why treat CONCACAF/CONMEBOL that way? Yes, I know OFC only has one nation even remotely close to world-stage-ready, but still. (Other option: keep the LMXF spot and two CONMEBOL spots, and give OFC's second slot to USA - still six total between CCAF+CBOL+OFC.) Arbitrarily giving two to every confederation, then an extra four to UEFA, just doesn't add up. The idea that you could have 3 German teams and just one US team seems ridiculous to me, especially considering how many much weaker nations would also be getting the same 1 slot... [/bias, but informed bias]
Yes, 16 teams that's a three weeks duration tournament at minimum, however...it may be done another way ie. like man's CWC with seeded teams and play-off's from the start. Yup, it's 4 spots for AFC/OFC and granted that OFC should get two spots on equals, but hey it's around 50 countries in AFC and more than 2/3 of them have women national leagues. OFC has what 15 countries? (1/3 of them are non-FIFA) Outside of Papua New Guinea or Fiji how many national legues is in there? It's 2 spots for top ranking nations in UEFA and same goes for CONCACAF, CONMEBOL and CAF. Would ie. France and England or Norway and Denmark jump over Germany in ranking (which is more likely for that matter than Trynidad&T or Costa Rica jumpin over USA) and Germany get zilch. Same goes for any other european team for that matter. Four extra spots in UEFA is cuz of UWCL. Over 600 (!) european club teams competing in over 50 national leagues and each one with an access to UWCL. And you argue about 2nd extra spot for USA? I don't get it...on what ground? How many teams in NWSL? And It has to be 2 spots for CONMEBOL as well, cuz of Copa Libertadores - over 200 club teams competing in 10 national leagues there and each club with possible access to CL.
Total number of clubs doesn't mean much. If you're not going to have just one club per continent like the men's CWC has, then you have to balance numerical representation with competitive strength - and the VAST majority of those 200 or 600 clubs stand absolutely no chance against thirteen of the sixteen clubs in the current theoretical WCWC lineup. Think on this: in the men's WC, nearly half of CONMEBOL nations (4.5/10) nations qualify - admittedly, it's for a 32-team tournament instead of a 16-team tournament, but it's still insane that it's nearly 50%, as no other confederation comes anywhere close to that percentage. And why is that? Because they're that good. Now, there isn't any history to base things from at the moment, but most talk about how NWSL would compare to the top UEFA women's leagues is that the top half of the NWSL table certainly wouldn't outright win any of the big 4 UEFA leagues but would challenge for UWCL spots, since most UEFA leagues are very top-heavy. Those NWSL clubs would also thus have a good shot at top 8 in the UWCL (and would likely win any leagues outside of the big 4. So by a strength argument, I think it implies that CONCACAF should have more than 2 slots in a 16-team competition - i.e. give them 3 or at least 2.5 - similar to how CONCACAF had 2.5 slots in the WWC before it expanded from 16 to 24 (even when the USA was the only CONCACAF team to ever make it out of the group stage until after the expansion from 12 to 16). I guess my big criticism with giving "free spots" to UEFA just because the UWCL exists is that it's very, very easy to see UEFA show up in this theoretical 16-team tournament with 3 German teams and 3 French teams while the USA is left with just 1 team, even though the USA has a stronger NT and a league that's (arguably) better top-to-bottom, too. There's also the criticism that the USA, with the top NT an a top-six league, gets the same representation as the likes of Korea, Nigeria, or Chile, which also seems like a huge misrepresentation in strength. As such, I think you either need to A) distribute the UEFA spots and "extra OFC spot" better, or B) buff up the USA representation - and the latter seemed like the easier option earlier, especially since it deals with both criticisms instead of just the big crit, but I can see other options too. Like, maybe giving the two non-UWCL spots to the top two UEFA nations not already represented in the four UWCL semifinalists, and letting the #2 USA rep have a play-off with the smaller-nation-rep that's taken OFC's second slot.
Sorry, just to understand: is this an educated guess on the ground of what FIFA said in Muscat or did they actually laid out the qualification plan the way you did here? French Division 1 Féminine could feel a little out in the cold, this way, but on the other hand it looks like they have Champions' League to make up for that, in these last years! Since you talked about Champions 2017 (and not 2016), wouldn't it have to be Portland Thorns?
On paper it would look like two slots to every federation, but I guess 3 to AFC + 1 to OFC is not meant to be read this way. AFC deserves three spots for the relevance of the federation in women's football, not even remotely comparable to OFC, CAF or CONMEBOL. I mean, which other continent, apart from North America, Europe and Asia, placed several national teams in the top-spots of Senior WWCs, Youth WWCs or Olympics in history? Don't get me even started about my usual rant about OFC. In my opinion, they put Australia back in OFC or they have New Zealand's Champion play-off with another team (likely from CONCACAF or CONMEBOL): there is no other way to make it serious. If you want OFC to exist, you have to put 90% of their territory and population back where it geographically belongs; or you stop treating OFC as a "serious" federation. I could remotely discuss having one less slot for AFC only if OFC's slot would belong to Australia (i.e., if Australia would get back to being part of Oceania, as any primary school textbook would teach you). Anyway, I agree that CONCACAF's relevance in women's football is higher than 2 spots. But, on the other hand, the problem with them is: apart from USA and Mexico, what they exactly have to offer in terms of club football? I guess that's the reasoning behind that choice. But I could very well discuss having two teams from NWSL, given the very high relevance of that league in women's football (could be Champions and Shield winners; if the same, then other play-off finalist; when Mobcast Cup in Japan existed, something similar had been done for Japanese clubs).
So your grounds for 2 spots for USA is based on... opinion(s) of some... or more (NWSL fans I presume) O.K ,O.K I can live with that. Here's mine(s) I(we) see at least 50 clubs from Europe that could very well compete on equal ground for NWSL trophy. (yes, we can brag as well ) I think that Barcelona or Brescia would fit in NWSL? Yes? But hey, one year ago in UWCL Medyk Konin give Italians run for their money and 2 years ago BIIK Kazygurt scared Barca. (yes, Kazakhstan's ranked around 70th FIFA) When Trynidad & Tobago's club champs will start throwing their weight around Seattle or Houston we can talk about 3rd spot for CONCACAF taken from UEFA's Your only option is to rob OFC for 0.5 spot (FIFA won't allow it though)
Yes, but it's still only early ideas... Yes, my mistake I was thinkig about regular season winners instead of play-offs
as you got to know, I love watching soccer from all over the world. My fav is the Bundesliga who most fans would say is the top league in Europe, based that it's way more balanced than lets say the French. It's not just that they have almost all of Germany'd best on it, but the entire Austrian NT starting lineup, as well as the Swiss. They got a smattering of strong Eastern Euro players that could possibly make a top ten NT if they were allowed to play together. Even though the English & French leagues might actually have more top internationals, they just don't have entire other foreign NT's on their squad(remember Great Britain played united at the Olympics, but flubbed) So with the Bund you got the #2 NT(Germany) plus three top 15 NT's(Austria, Swiss & combined Eastern Europe. But that's nothing in comparison to the NWSL who can openly boast the best players/or almost all the starting players of the #1 NT in the world(US), but from the #4(Australia)as well , plus most of #5(Canada) & #8 Brazil. And they combine all those players in only 9 teams! From what I've seen only Lyon would be able to beat top 5 NWSL squads Now you mentioned Guadalajara as Mexico's representative, They only won the champ. game because the team that blew away everybody during the regular season, Club America, gave away several of their players to the NT right before the semis(the NT coach is the son of the CA coach). Besides, half of Mexico's top players didn't even play in the La Liga, They didn't even allow any foreigners & their NT is only ranked something like #25
Referencing the 2012 Olympics data is a joke, especially with regard to club football. Something that happened 6 years has no relevance to today's FA WSL level.
Not just fans, and not just opinions. The position I'm stating has been voiced by many journalists, and what's not opinion was already pointed out by hotjam - look at the density of top-level-NT players per club in NWSL versus other leagues. Aside from the handful of UEFA superclubs, it's not even close. Barca, yes - Bescia, likely not. Unless Italian football has a revival, they're doomed to the bottom few spots of NWSL. They could beat the 2017 Spirit but not the 2015 Spirit. You say 50 and that's pie in the sky. There's no way someone outside the top 20 or so in Europe has a remote shot at the NWSL Shield - and that's being very generous. It's probably more like 10, but if you want to consider the playoff champions instead of the shield holders, that's a little more wiggle room. And BIIK is a bad example. I've already noted in the UWCL thread that their only good results are either against other minnow clubs or when they drag a relatively good club halfway around the world to their home ground in Kazakhstan. (And Konin is bad b/c, as I mentioned above, Italy hasn't been a top-level NT or top-level league for a while now.)
I would definitely not be that generous to NWSL. NWSL does have a high density of talent, but I think there are far more clubs than just Lyon that have similar densities. Plus, those clubs usually have rosters that are slightly more stable, so you can tolerate slightly lower density of top-level-NT talent. If I had to list UEFA teams that I see potentially competing for the NWSL Shield, I would venture: --Lyon and PSG --Wolfsburg and Bayern --Linkoping and Rosengard --Man City and Chelsea --then, depending on the year, throw in two or three of (Potsdam, Frankfurt, Arsenal, Barca, AtMadrid) Some of these, particularly the potpourri at the end, could only win the NWSL Shield on a high-parity year when no NWSL clubs really distance themselves from the pack - that is, they wouldn't do better than a Portland or NCC when they're firing on all cylinders consistently. Others, like Lyon, Wolfburg, and Bayern, could probably beat any NWSL team, even the best ones, both in a home-and-away series and over the course of a season.
I do wonder where Japanese clubs could be positioned. Some years ago, Nadeshiko League was attracting the occasional talent from overseas, but right now it seems like they're quite trapped in a domestic-only stage. Yes, we had Foord last season and some Koreans here and there, plus some US and Aussie youngsters (some of them can become big, later, as Ashleigh Sykes did), but mostly I have to admit Nadeshiko League has become marginal. It's not like when we were having Ji So-Yun, Yanez, Kellond-Knight, Moros, and some minor players from Korea, New Zealand and Thailand. Anyway, being quite far from both America and Europe and being a so particular culture, difficult to blend-in, probably makes things more difficult. In 2012 (or 2013, can't remember), INAC Kobe Leonessa had battled head-to-head with OL in Mobcast Cup final, but back then INAC was basically Nadeshiko Japan NT 2.0, and Nadeshiko Japan, in turn, had just won WWC and Olympic silver. Those times look quite far, right now.
I am just curious to why they would need 16 teams rather than 8, I mean two teams from four confederation seems a good number for me ?
fine then have it your way; the WSL is mainly compromised of #3, England, #23 Scotland. #35 Wales.#55 N Ireland. How does that match up when the NWSL got the main players from 4 of the top 8 NT's in the world? To be sure there's talent out there; NI/Everton's Magil nearly beat Man City single handily in one game I saw, but that the even more influential Scotland have so under whelmed at the world stage does tell s bit. Arsenal's talented Dutch quartet & Cheslea's Norwegian deuce get compromised that so many of England's top talent don't even play in the WSL; Bronze,Taylor, Sanderson, Nobbs. Duggan, Daly, Galton. that's by far the most domestic talent missing from any of the major leagues The reason I prefer the Bundesliga over the NWSL is that they only play one game a week, or even weeks(with all the open windows) is they play with such sheer intensity vs the NWL with sometimes 3 games scheduled in a week, sometimes seem like they go just through the motions, especially late in the season, but otherwise the BUND has lost it's luster a bit as top notch players have moved out to the higher paying WSL/FF1/ You could nix out the two Swedish clubs. Rosengard lost Marta, Martens, Masser, Mcleod in succession. PSG lost 3 notables in recent months to China; Cruz, Christiane & Vero My top 5 pick would be 1. Lyon hotjam2 3,243 1,121 113 View my posts View my threads My watched threads Trending Threads 606: Can't Keep Us Locked Down Posted in Free For All CarolinaM 239: Back to the Future Posted in Free For All Kafana - Bosnian Cafe - Discuss... Posted in Bosnia & Herzegovina Christian Pulisic at Borussia... Posted in Yanks Abroad Other Teams ** Only Italy ** [R] Posted in AS Rom 2 Thorns 3. Orlando 4. Wolfsburg 5. Courage when the playoffs begin, that's when the NWSL come out to play: the Thorns vs Orlando semis was the best game(NT or club) all year long/ Think Orlando'd pickups this year will make them even stronger than the Courage/ Would like to rate Wolfsburg higher, but it has a weak back line(for reference, just ask forum member, Thomsen@. who they got back there on defense!, lol) I wonder why Japan don't make an financial deal with North Korea so their players could come over can come over to the Nadeshiko League? Cuz that's what I read happens that several of NK's men's best do// It be interesting to his how do that one ace goal scorer will do outside her norm. I swear, their right back is the best FB this side of Lucy Bronze, & all the up coming youth.........
Well, last time I checked some of these players were playing in FA WSL: Vivianne Miedema, Heather O' Reilly, Sari Van Veenendal, Crystal Dunn, Ji So-Yun, Ramona Bachmann, Maren Mjelde, Maria Thorisdottir, Hedvig Lindhal, Nadia Nadim, Pauline Bremer... Not bad for a League that, according to your words, should only rely on British islands.
but I did mention that all ready"Arsenal Dutch quartet, Chelsea Norwegian deuce" "compromised" by several of England's best playing outside the WSL all you mentioned play for just 3 clubs. From those Bremer injured throughout the season. Nadim not even a starter over at the Thorns as well as Bachmann at WOB. Ji equally talented countrywomen, Jeon Gul_Eul, cut from an NWSL team. Besides, you never watch the WSL, but you do the NWSL!