This new development was made known on Thursday December 24, in an official statement by FIFA.
Recall that FIFA recently made a provision for eight more teams be included in the global showpiece, making it a 32-team competition, instead of 24.
Africa will benefit from that provision by having an extra automatic slot added to it’s previous three. It may also earn two additional slots based on the performance of the two teams from Africa that would participate in a playoff tournament between 10 teams.
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According to FIFA, the 32-team competition has 29 direct slots. The 3 remaining slots will be decided from the playoff between 10 teams (with 2 teams from Africa). If the two eventually qualify, then the continent will have 6 participants in total.
Aside from Africa, below are the distribution of the automatic slots of other continents:
UEFA (11), Asia (6), CONCACAF (4), CONMEBOL (3) and OFC (1).
For the playoff tournament, 2 slots each went to Asia, Africa, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, while UEFA and OFC got 1 each.
This really is a good news, because it will increase the chances of African teams advancing further in the Women’s World Cup.
