Women’s World Cup: Over 100,000 Fans Expected For Opening Matchday

The opening day of the Women’s World Cup on Thursday is set to break attendance records in Australia and New Zealand for women’s football, with more than 100,000 fans expected to be in the stadiums.

The opening match between New Zealand and Norway in Auckland is expected to surpass the host country’s previous biggest crowd for an international football match (37,000), which was set when the New Zealand men’s team, known as All Whites, played Peru in 2017.

It is also expected to more than triple the largest crowd ever for the New Zealand women’s team, known as Football Ferns, which came in January this year when 12,721 fans turned up for the game against the world champions U.S.

Elsewhere in Sydney, Australia’s game against Ireland is expected to attract a crowd of more than 80,000 – surpassing the record crowd for a women’s football match in Australia, which was set when 50,629 fans attended the Matildas’ warm-up match against France last week.

“It will be an epic opening night with over 100,000 fans attending a women’s football match at the first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup held in the Southern Hemisphere,” said Sarai Bareman, FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer.

“It will set the tone for a FIFA Women’s World Cup that I expect to become a watershed moment in global women’s sports – not only from an attendance perspective but way beyond that when it comes to developing the game globally and celebrating female empowerment.”

Ticket Sales

FIFA said in a release that over 1.4 million tickets have been sold for this year’s tournament, which will run from July 20 to August 20. The figure is already higher than the 1.3 million ticket sales in the 2015 World Cup in Canada.

Fans from 182 countries have bought tickets for matches, with the U.S., England, Qatar, China, Germany, Ireland, Canada and Nigeria are among the top 10 countries for ticket sales, along with the host nations, Australia and New Zealand.

“New Zealand and Australia are not close to many of the countries competing in the tournament, but it is wonderful to see that people have decided to travel from every corner of the globe to be part of this celebration of women’s football,” added Bareman.

Expanded Pool

This year’s tournament is the biggest so far with 32 teams, up from 24 in the previous two editions. The teams are divided into eight groups of four teams each, with the top two in each group advancing to the Round of 16.

The U.S. is the favourite to defend the title and achieve the “three-peat” following the team’s success in 2015 and 2019 but they will not have an easy road to glory, with European champions England, heavyweights Spain, France and co-hosts Australia also challenging for the title.