FIFA Women's Club World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  The FIFA Women's Club World Cup does not have a completed edition yet. Its story picked up real momentum on the 26th of May 2016. That day, Arsenal L.F.C. and Seattle Reign FC drew 1-1 in a friendly at Memorial Stadium in Seattle. Arsenal held the FA Women's Cup and Seattle held the NWSL Shield. The match was described at the time as 'a stepping stone to the grand idea of a FIFA Women's Club World Cup.' That grand idea would not become a fixed tournament for more than another decade. FIFA now lists the inaugural edition for January 2028, a target that has already shifted once since it was first announced. Before FIFA ever proposed a competition of its own, a smaller invitational tournament in Japan tried out the concept on a much smaller scale. What did that early tournament look like, and why did FIFA keep returning to the idea across so many meetings and press conferences? And why did the eventual launch date and team count both change after FIFA finally committed to a plan? The answers begin in Japan, years before FIFA ever entered the picture.

• 2. A Tournament In Japan

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  Four clubs took part in the first edition of the International Women's Club Championship in 2012. They were Canberra United of Australia, INAC Kobe Leonessa and NTV Beleza of Japan, and Olympique Lyonnais of France. Lyonnais arrived as the defending UEFA Women's Champions League winners. The Japan Football Association and the L. League organized the tournament as an annual invitational.

  In October 2012, L-League senior executive Yoshinori Taguchi said he wanted the event to run for three years and grow to include more continental champions. Taguchi also hoped FIFA would eventually endorse the tournament as a women's counterpart to the FIFA Club World Cup. A different route toward FIFA involvement opened the following year, through an unrelated club match.

  In 2013, the Brazilian club São José won the Copa Libertadores Femenina. São José's board claimed FIFA had approved a match between the South American champions and VfL Wolfsburg. Wolfsburg held the 2012-13 UEFA Women's Champions League title, and the match was planned for 2014. That proposed meeting between continental champions never advanced past the planning stage.

  The idea of connecting continental champions through FIFA was about to move from club boardrooms into FIFA's own committee room.

• 3. FIFA Weighs The Idea

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  In October 2013, FIFA's executive committee heard a formal proposal from its Women's Football Task Force to explore an official FIFA Women's Club World Cup. The Task Force returned with the same proposal in 2015, this time adding calls for more teams and for competitions at the confederation level.

  Two years later, in 2017, Chief Women's Football Officer Sarai Bareman raised the same possibility publicly. Bareman said FIFA wanted 'to be very careful about how we introduce it, when we introduce it and it has to include all regions.' Bareman added that not every region had reached the same level of development in the women's game. She called the opportunity 'amazing' but said it demanded that FIFA be 'very strategic and careful about how we do it.'

  During the closing press conference of the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino outlined a plan for the new competition. He said the new tournament needed to happen 'as soon as possible,' calling it a step toward the future development of women's football.

  Three more years would pass before FIFA committed anything to paper.

• 4. A Shifting Launch

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  In December 2022, FIFA announced plans to establish a Women's Club World Cup, but confirmed the women's football calendar would stay unchanged until 2025.

  By May 2024, FIFA had a fuller plan: an inaugural edition in January and February 2026, featuring 16 teams. FIFA also confirmed the tournament would repeat every four years. Alongside it, FIFA planned a second global women's club competition, similar to the men's FIFA Intercontinental Cup, to be played annually in the years between. That annual event was set to begin in 2027.

  Both plans changed again before the first ball was kicked. The inaugural Women's Club World Cup was postponed from 2026 to January 2028 and expanded from 16 to 19 teams, adding a play-in tournament. The second competition moved in the opposite direction: FIFA pulled it forward to 2026 and named it the FIFA Women's Champions Cup.

  The new play-in tournament will decide the final three of those nineteen places. How it works is a question the January 2028 edition will have to answer for itself.