The Football Association (FA) governing bodies of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, collectively known within the UK as the Home Nations, have jointly announced their desire to launch a bid to host the 2035 FIFA Women’s World Cup national teams tournament.
The bid, which must be submitted by the fourth quarter (October to December) of 2025, has already been publicly supported by the country’s Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, as well as the four constituent FAs.
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The showpiece event was last staged in Europe in France, in 2019. Brazil will host the tournament in 2027 and the US and Mexico joint bid is the favorite to land the rights (as yet unconfirmed) in 2031.
The UK has never previously bid or hosted the event, but England alone has expressed a desire to in previous editions, most notably for the 2019 edition, and England has also twice hosted the continental UEFA Women’s European Championships (2005 and 2022).
The four UK nations, along with the neighboring Republic of Ireland, have already won the right to jointly host the men's 2028 UEFA European Championships.
Preparations for that tournament have not been easy, particularly in Northern Ireland where it is likely to lose its hosting spot due to the lack of development in the Casement Park stadium project.
What stadium the Northern Irish FA elects to host in 2035 remains to be seen.
England’s FA chief executive Mark Billingham stated of the bid: “We strongly believe that we could organize a fantastic tournament, building on the success of the Women's Euro in 2022 [which England also won] and the subsequent rapid growth of the women's game in England.”
In the UK, the Women’s World Cup is demanded by legal statute to be shown on free-to-air television, and in 2023 attracted over 13 million viewers during the final.
The wealth of elite soccer facilities across the UK and strong transport links will make the bid a strong contender, but it will nonetheless face stiff competition.
FIFA has restricted the 2035 tournament to be hosted in either the European UEFA zone, or the African CAF zone, and several countries from across both have also expressed interest in bidding.
Elsewhere in Europe, Spain, the current World Cup champions from 2023, was rumored to be seeking a bid for 2031 hosting before FIFA restricted bids for that tournament to between CAF and North America’s Concacaf, meaning that a Spanish bid could now be pushed back to 2035, although there has been no official communication to that effect.
In terms of CAF countries, the FAs of both Morocco and South Africa have submitted bids for the World Cup in 2031, having each pushed back bids from 2027 after Brazil’s triumph, and may do so to 2035 again should the US and Mexico win 2031 hosting rights.
Morocco, which has an advanced soccer infrastructure, is hosting both the men’s and women’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) competitions in 2025, having hosted the 2022 Women’s AFCON and is also designated to host for a third consecutive time in 2026.
While Morocco could be the UK’s strongest challenger for the hosting mantle, South Africa, reigning Women’s AFCON champions, hosted the FIFA men’s World Cup in 2010, and could leverage that history and the success of that tournament in a future bid.
However, Morocco will also host games at the 2030 men’s World Cup as part of a joint hosting deal with Spain and Portugal, and it remains to be seen how that aspect will affect the country’s chances.
It is anticipated that the decisions on the hosts of the 2031 and 2035 Women’s World Cups will be taken at the 76th FIFA Congress in the second quarter of 2026.
