FIFA makes 2007 Women's World Cup a test case

There will be more than national pride on the line at the Women's World Cup in China. At stake will be the direction of the sport.

FIFA is using this year's tournament a test case. It has put off until late November decisions about which nation will host the 2011 Women's World Cup and how many teams that tournament will include.

Sixteen nations -- including such perennial powers as the United States, Norway, Germany, Sweden and Brazil -- will head to five Chinese cities for the Sept. 10-30 tournament.

"We hope to see some really close matches in China, then we can think about expanding the 2011 tournament from 16 teams to 24," FIFA communications chief Markus Siegler said. "Certainly, 7-0 matches are not good for the sport."

The International Olympic Committee has raised the number of women's soccer teams eligible for the 2008 Beijing Games from 10 to 12.

"The future of our sport lies with women," FIFA president Sepp Blatter has said. "And it's not just in Western countries. Right now, there is no single country in the world in which women do not play."

The U.S. women are ranked No. 1, reclaiming the top spot this spring from Germany.

This year is the fifth time the Women's World Cup has been held since the tournament began in 1991. The United States won in 1991 and 1999, Norway won in 1995 and Germany in 2003.

Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Peru are bidding for the 2011 World Cup in a tough competition in which the Swiss already have withdrawn.

On the men's side, only one nation -- Brazil -- is in the running for the 2014 World Cup. The announcement of the host country is Nov. 25.

While FIFA has a continental rotation system in place to chose hosts for the men's World Cups, no such system guides the women. The only general policy is that the tournament cannot return to the same continent four years later, a guideline broken in 2003 when the Asian SARS epidemic prompted FIFA to switch the tournament from China to the United States.

France and Canada appear to have the strongest bids for 2011.

"Most people think of Canada as a hockey nation, but we have more girls playing soccer in Canada than we have boys playing hockey," said Colin Linford, president of the Canadian soccer federation.

More than 350,000 Canadian girls play soccer and the number grows each year as top Canadian players seek college scholarships in the United States, he said. Canada already has sold 750,000 tickets, a record number, for the men's under-20 World Cup tournament this July, and its women are ranked 10th in the world.

Germany has a powerhouse women's team and held a successful men's World Cup last year. But for that reason, it may be too soon to give the country another World Cup.

That could open the door for France, whose women are seventh in the world and whose men were runners-up in the 2006 World Cup. France also is a key member of European soccer's governing body.

Australia has excellent facilities from the 2000 Olympics and a 14th-ranked team, but it just joined the same regional group as China, this year's host and the host for the 2008 Olympics.

Peru would appear to be a long shot. Its women are ranked 42nd and its infrastructure and fan support for women's soccer are less developed. It's also in a spat with FIFA over the world body's ban on holding international matches in stadiums at high altitude.

So 2011 depends on 2007. Today's stars hope to generate even more opportunities for women in the world's most popular sport.

"We want to show the world the high quality of soccer that women can play -- not just winning soccer, but attractive, attacking, goal-scoring soccer," U.S. player Heather O'Reilly said. "We can put on a show that is worthy of world attention."

Source: Soccernet.com