NZ, Australia join forces for World Cup

Australia and New Zealand will join forces in their bid to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup after reaching an 11th-hour agreement before the bid deadline tomorrow.

Football Federation Australia has abandoned plans to bid for the tournament alone and will instead partner with New Zealand Football to co-host the expanded 32-team tournament.

Accommodating eight additional teams is not the driving force behind the partnership of the two nations, but rather thoughts that a union presents their best hopes of winning the vote to host the World Cup.

The belief is that on their own, Australia or New Zealand may have struggled to impress the 37 members of Fifa’s executive committee and that a joint bid forms their best chance of beating the two frontrunners, Colombia and Japan.

FFA chief Chris Nikou flagged the possibility of a partnership last month and sources close to the negotiations suggest the transTasman bid has been formally agreed upon by the two nations.

Australia and New Zealand have compiled the relevant documents and completed the bid book which is already on its way to Zurich ready to be submitted by the December 13 deadline.

Within that bid book is a proposal to stage the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in Sydney, with a newly renovated 75,000 seat stadium in Olympic Park the most likely venue to host the decider. ANZ Stadium will host its last event on June 27, 2020, before undergoing renovations and is set to reopen in early 2023.

New Zealand Football declined to comment yesterday and it’s not yet known what composition of games will be shared between Australia and New Zealand as part of the bid.

However, that could be known as early as next week with Fifa set to make all bid books publicly available online.