Football: Setback for DFB: Brazil celebrates the 2027 Women’s World Cup

When Gianni Infantino held the envelope in his hands and smiled smugly before presenting a golden piece of paper, it was clear that the most important vote at the 74th Fifa Congress in Bangkok had gone completely in the spirit of his all-powerful president. Not the unpopular Europeans with the joint application from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, but Brazil was chosen to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup on Friday. In the tenth edition, the world champions will be crowned in South America for the first time. Brazil won with 119:78 votes compared to the application from the border triangle, which was summarized under the slogan “BNG”.

This is a bitter setback for the German Football Association (DFB) and its president Bernd Neuendorf, who sits on the world association’s council – because it makes a second organization after the Women’s World Cup in 2011 unrealistic. Because it is becoming apparent that in 2031 either the economically powerful double application of the USA and Mexico or South Africa will be considered. This time both had withdrawn their offer.

Neuendorf didn’t want to talk about a new attempt: “We’ll assess and evaluate it calmly.” For the time being, the DFB had no choice but to “recognize the quality of the Brazilian association’s (CBF) application” and send congratulations. The foolish announcement by Vice President Sabine Mammitzsch, who recently talked about “100 safe votes” on Deutschlandfunk, is counteracted.

»Football is a competition that we face again and again. This means that you don’t always leave the pitch as a winner,” said DFB General Secretary Heike Ullrich. The fact that the candidacy she pushed forward with a lot of passion failed so clearly in the open vote also has a sports policy background. Infantino in particular is said to have owed something to South America’s confederation because only three games will take place there in the 2030 Men’s World Cup, which is spread across three continents. It is suspected that the impresario staged a move with the Asian confederation and its increasing influence from Saudi Arabia to give the Germans a resounding slap in the face for their public criticism of Qatar.

The “legal risks” also acted as ballast because neither stadium operators, cities nor governments in the heart of Europe were prepared to guarantee the extensive sovereign rights that have now been demanded for a women’s final tournament. Ultimately, the result was a better grade in the evaluation report for Brazil, which was explicitly explained to the meeting before the vote.

After the electronic vote, CBF President Ednaldo Rodrigues shed tears of emotion when he spoke of a “victory for women’s football.” Now we would first “celebrate for two days”. Apparently 69 million compatriots have already watched the Brazilian footballers at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, where Marta and Co., like the DFB women, embarrassed themselves in the preliminary round. Nevertheless, nowhere in South America would women’s football grow as much as in the diverse country on Sugarloaf Mountain, where 840,000 women and girls are now said to play football. Five ministers promised full support in the application video. 215 million inhabitants, almost half of whom are under 35, offer huge opportunities – and this population stands for diversity anyway.

DFB boss Neuendorf and sports director Nia Künzer unsuccessfully promoted the “most compact tournament” of all time in their speeches at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center. DFB captain Alexandra Popp also emphasized in a video message that the short travel times on buses or trains were also convenient for the players. But nobody has ever scored points at FIFA with sustainability. Similar to the 2026 Men’s World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico, the Women’s World Cup, which will probably take place from June 24th to July 25th, 2027, will also have to cover huge distances in different time and climate zones. The games are played in the hot north (Recife, Salvador) as well as in the cool south (Porto Alegre), in the capital (Brasilia), in the metropolises (Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) or in the Amazon basin (Manaus).

Despite all the power games in the FIFA circle, the Europeans have also made some technical mistakes that need to be dealt with self-critically. On the one hand, promising the most commercially successful Women’s World Cup of all time, but then naming venues in the Netherlands and especially Belgium that are clearly too small, that doesn’t fit together. “Seven of the stadiums do not appear to meet the seating capacity requirements in relation to the game categories for which they are intended,” the FIFA inspectors rightly wrote in the evaluation report.

There was nothing wrong with the stadiums in Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Gelsenkirchen, but there was nothing wrong with arenas in Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent and Genk, which each have just over 20,000 seats. Brazil, on the other hand, offers an average capacity of 54,296 visitors in all of its stadiums, which were already used for the 2014 Men’s World Cup. However, the small print mentions the option of possibly not opening individual stadium areas at all if not enough tickets are sold. But Brazil still has three years to get people excited about World Cup games like Denmark against Haiti or Morocco against South Korea, as they did in an exemplary manner in Australia and New Zealand last year.