2011 FIFA Women's World Cup

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2011 FIFA Women's World Cup FIFA Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft der Frauen Deutschland 2011

Tournament details
Host country	Germany
Dates	26 June – 17 July
Teams	16 (from 6 confederations)

The FIFA Women's World Cup 2011 will be the sixth instance of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's football world championship tournament. It has been provisionally scheduled to take place between 26 June and 17 July 2011,^[1] and it will be held in Germany which won the right to host the event in October 2007.^[2]

Two-time defending world champions Germany will be automatically qualified as the host nation. Other national teams will start qualification in their continental confederations in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

1 Host selection
2 Venues
3 Teams
4 Organisation
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Host selection

Six nations, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Peru, and Switzerland, initially declared their interest in hosting the Women's World Cup 2011. The German Football Association (DFB) announced its hopes to host the tournament on 26 January 2006, following the pledge of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to fully support a potential bid.^[3] All six nations officially announced their interest by a 1 March 2007 deadline and acknowledged their intention of bidding by 3 May 2007 to FIFA. The final bidding dossiers had to be handed over before 1 August 2007. Switzerland withdrew on 29 May 2007, citing that Europe is heavily focused on Germany and France, and a third European bid appeared futile. On 27 August 2007, France also withdrew, reportedly in exchange for Germany's support for their bid to host the men's UEFA European Championship 2016.^[4] Later Australia (on 12 October 2007) and Peru (on 17 October 2007) voluntarily dropped out of the race as well, leaving only Germany and Canada as the remaining candidates. On 30 October 2007, the FIFA executive committee in Zurich voted to assign the tournament to Germany.^[2]

[edit] Venues

After the German Football Association (DFB) expressed its intention to bid for the Women's World Cup, 23 German cities applied to host World Cup games. Twelve cities were eventually chosen for the official bidding dossier.

City	Stadium name	Host club	Capacity
Augsburg	Impuls Arena	FC Augsburg	43,000
Berlin	Olympic Stadium	Hertha BSC Berlin	74.000
Bielefeld	SchücoArena	Arminia Bielefeld	28.008
Bochum	Ruhrstadion	VfL Bochum	24.000
Dresden	Rudolf-Harbig-Stadion	SG Dynamo Dresden	27.000
Essen	Georg-Melches-Stadion	Rot-Weiss Essen	26,000
Frankfurt	Commerzbank-Arena	Eintracht Frankfurt	49,000
Leverkusen	BayArena	Bayer Leverkusen	30,000
Magdeburg	Stadion Magdeburg	1. FC Magdeburg	27,000
Mönchengladbach	Borussia-Park	Borussia Mönchengladbach	46,000
Sinsheim	Rhein-Neckar-Arena	TSG 1899 Hoffenheim	26,000
Wolfsburg	Volkswagen-Arena	VfL Wolfsburg	25,000

Berlin, Frankfurt and Wolfsburg have been confirmed as World Cup stadia by DFB general secretary, Wolfgang Niersbach.^[5] The remaining venues will be chosen among the cities above, but have not been decided yet. FIFA is expecting four to six stadia for a field of 16 teams. It is currently planned to hold the opening game at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the venue of the 2006 men's World Cup Final, and to use the Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt for the final of the tournament. According to Niersbach, the Women's World Cup should start at the stadium where the men's World Cup 2006 ended.^[6] DFB president Theo Zwanziger has said he considers three to four games per city appropriate, and that he expects the remaining World Cup locations to be presented in the fall of 2008.^[7] Overall, approximately one million tickets will be available.^[6]

The Olympic Stadium in Berlin, venue of the 2006 men's World Cup Final, is considered for the opening game.

[edit] Teams

FIFA had considered the prospect of increasing the number of teams from 16 to 24, to reflect the growing global popularity of women's football and the Women's World Cup. However, on 14 March 2008, the FIFA executive committee decided to keep the number of participants at 16, concerned more teams would dilute the quality of play.^[7] The idea of having 20 teams taking part, which had been discussed, was ruled impossible to implement in terms of fixture planning and logistics.^[8] During the Women's World Cup 2007, FIFA president Sepp Blatter had campaigned for the idea to increase the number of teams, although this proposal was not unquestioned. In particular the 11-0 victory of Germany over Argentina in the opening game of the 2007 tournament had created a debate whether there were 24 national teams on a comparable level.

Qualification for the tournament has not yet started. As the host nation, Germany is granted automatic qualification, while the remaining national teams have to qualify through their continental confederations.

[edit] Organisation

The preparations for the tournament are supervised by the so-called "Women's World Cup 2011 Organising Committee Germany."^[9] President of the organising committee is former German international Steffi Jones; she officially started her work on 1 January 2008. German president Horst Köhler will be the patron of the tournament.^[10]

The official World Cup emblem, called "Arena Deutschland," was presented by Steffi Jones and Franz Beckenbauer during the break between the women's and men's game of the German Cup final on 19 April 2008. It shows a stylized stadium with stripes in the national colours of Germany, black, red and gold, and a pictogram of the Women's World Cup trophy in the upper right corner. It was designed by the Stuttgart advertising agency WVP.^[11]