The 2031 Women's World Cup will expand to 48 teams, with the 16-team increase announced among other landmark decisions by the FIFA Council on Friday.
The decision to expand the World Cup aims to "broaden representation, offering more nations and players access to elite competition and accelerating investment in women's football worldwide," according to the FIFA release.
"The FIFA Women's World Cup 2023, the first in which teams from all confederations won at least one game and teams from five confederations reached the knockout stage, among many other records, set a new standard for global competitiveness," said FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
"This decision ensures we are maintaining the momentum in terms of growing women’s football globally."
The expanded 2031 World Cup, hosted by the US, will adopt a 12-group format, increasing the total number of matches from 64 to 104 while extending the competition for an additional week.
The World Cup expansion announcement comes on the heels of last month's increased Olympic tournament news, with the IOC boosting the women's soccer field to 16 teams at the 2028 LA Games.
The decision also puts the women's competition in line with the men's World Cup, which will feature FIFA's first 48-team tournament in 2026.
FIFA approves Afghan women's refugee team
In the same Friday announcement, the FIFA Council also approved the creation of an Afghanistan women's refugee team, which would provide evacuated Afghan women players the ability to compete on an officially recognized FIFA team.
While FIFA requires that national federations sponsor teams, the Afghan Football Federation ceased acknowledging its women's team once the Taliban-controlled government banned women's sports.
Originally formed by the country's Olympic Committee in 2007, the Afghanistan women's national team has not played a FIFA-recognized match since 2018, and most of its athletes fled the country amidst the Taliban's second takeover in 2021.
Since then, players have petitioned FIFA for the opportunity to compete. Their efforts earned a one-year trial phase from the governing body on Friday, though the success of the program could see it expanded to refugees from other nations in the future.
"We are happy that FIFA has created a pathway for Afghan players to finally return to the field," team founder and former captain Khalida Popal told CNN on Friday, adding that the squad "remain[s] hopeful FIFA can amend its statutes to provide official recognition for our players as the Afghanistan Women's National Team."
Popal — who helped hundreds of Afghans, including the team, escape the Taliban — previously said the team "could show the world that Afghan women and girls belong in sport, in school and everywhere in society — and we will not be defeated."
Chelsea FC is the first team in Women's Super League (WSL) history to claim an unbeaten 22-game season, adding the undefeated moniker to their sixth-straight league title with Saturday's 1-0 win over Liverpool.
The Blues' perfect season joins the previous unbeaten campaigns of 2012's Arsenal, 2016's Manchester City, and Chelsea's own 2018 squad — though those three teams did so in 14, 16, and 18 games, respectively.
Chelsea finishes the 2024/25 campaign with an astounding 19 wins and three draws, missing just six possible points on the table en route to their new WSL record of 60 points in a single season.
"As a manager, players, and staff, you only live these moments maybe once in your life," said Chelsea head coach Sonia Bompastor following Saturday's history-making win. "You need to enjoy it because it is a great achievement."
Trailing Chelsea's impressive winning tally by a full 12 points, Arsenal secured second place with a 4-3 victory over third-place Manchester United in their Saturday season finale.
WSL standouts secure individual 2024/25 awards
Though they missed the WSL's team trophy, the Gunners did claim some individual hardware this weekend, as voters selected midfielder Mariona Caldentey as the inaugural winner of the WSL Player of the Season award.
The 29-year-old Spain international led the league in shot creation, and put up nine goals and five assists on the WSL stat sheet this season.
Caldentey's teammate Alessia Russo also walked away with a trophy, sharing the Golden Boot with fourth-place Manchester City's Khadija "Bunny" Shaw after both forwards scored 12 goals each on the season.
Also sharing a stat-sheet title is Chelsea's Hannah Hampton and Manchester United's Phallon Tullis-Joyce, who claimed the 2024/25 WSL Golden Glove award behind 13 clean sheets apiece.
Meanwhile, the season's WSL Rising Star award went to ninth-place West Ham striker Shekiera Martinez. After spending the first half of the 2024/25 season on loan to Bundesliga side SC Freiburg, the 23-year-old German international notched an astounding 10 goals in her 12 total WSL matches.
Speaking of impressive scoring, Manchester City forward Vivianne Miedema's stellar chip against Aston Villa in January earned the Dutch star the 2024/25 WSL Goal of the Season title.
The 2024/25 Women's Super League (WSL) season officially wraps on Saturday, with Chelsea preparing to claim even more history on the heels of their sixth-straight league title.
The still-undefeated Blues will face sixth-place Liverpool in their final outing, with Chelsea on the cusp of becoming the fourth-ever team to finish a WSL season unbeaten.
Should they do so, Chelsea will join 2012's Arsenal, 2016's Manchester City, and their own 2018 squad in achieving perfection — those this year's Blues would be the first to accomplish the feat in the expanded 22-match campaign.
While the team only needs a draw to remain undefeated, a win would secure Chelsea another record, becoming the first club to tally 60 points in a single campaign — two more than the current mark the Blues claimed in 2022/23.
Despite their astounding WSL record, the Blues have fought hard for their dominance this season, with first-year head coach Sonia Bompastor strategically using her entire roster to maintain the winning legacy left by now-USWNT boss Emma Hayes.
"Don't think it's easy. It's never easy," said Bompastor after Chelsea's 2024/25 title win. "It's a great achievement and a lot of work every day — I don't let my players breathe."
Battle for second-place continues on final WSL matchday
While Chelsea chases records, other top WSL clubs are still jockeying for positions on the league's final 2024/25 table.
Along with the Blues, Arsenal and Manchester United are locked into Champions League qualifying positions for next season — but United could leapfrog Arsenal for a second-place WSL finish on Saturday.
Separated by just one point, the Red Devils and the Gunners will face off against each other in the season's final blockbuster matchup.
Arsenal has extra incentive for a good showing, as the Gunners try to snap their two-game WSL losing streak and gain momentum before battling Barcelona in the May 24th Champions League final.
Chelsea also has a shot at another trophy looming, with the Blues chasing a second domestic treble — winning the league, FA Cup, and League Cup.
However, a tough Manchester United stands in the way of Chelsea's third and final treble title, with the pair facing off in the FA Cup's May 18th championship match.
How to watch WSL matches this weekend
All 12 WSL teams will kick off their season's last matches at 7:30 AM ET on Saturday.
Both Chelsea's game against Liverpool and Manchester United's visit to Arsenal will stream live on ESPN+.
Duke women's basketball head coach Kara Lawson will lead a different team this NCAA offseason, taking on sideline duties for Team USA at this summer's 2025 FIBA Women's AmeriCup in Chile, USA Basketball announced on Tuesday.
Likely one of the last coaching decisions handled by committee, Lawson — alongside assistants DeLisha Milton-Jones and Jennie Baranczyk, the head coaches of Old Dominion and Oklahoma, respectively — will aim to return the four-time champions to the top of the biannual tournament's podium, after falling short to Brazil in the 2023 gold medal game.
The 2005 WNBA champion boasts a long history of success with USA Basketball, earning 2008 Olympic gold amid multiple medals as a player before beginning her coaching career.
Since then, the 44-year-old helped lead various USA Basketball teams to an astounding 75-5 competition record, picking up nine gold medals along the way.
Most recently, Lawson added 2024 Olympic gold as an assistant coach to her inaugural 3x3 Olympic championship as a head coach at the 2021 Tokyo Games.
"I'm incredibly honored," said Lawson in a USA Basketball statement. "It's such a gift. It's a gift that has given me so much over the years as a player, as a committee member, and as a coach. I've always tried to compete and give my best.... That won't change this summer."
Taking place in the middle of the 2025 WNBA season, the Team USA roster could feature NCAA talent.
"The goal is to put together a competitive team, one that represents all the standards that we hold dear to us," added Lawson.
The 2025 FIBA AmeriCup team that Lawson will lead will be announced after next month's trials, shortly before the tournament tips off on June 28th.
FIFA announced the eight cities that will host matches at the 2027 World Cup in Brazil on Wednesday, primarily selecting sites on the South American country's East Coast over tropical regions that require more extensive travel.
In addition to Rio de Janeiro's iconic Maracanã Stadium, the tournament's 64 games will take place across Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Fortaleza, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and São Paulo.
"The selection of the host cities represents the moment where the dream begins to take shape," said Brazil’s minister of sport André Fufuca. "Each of the selected host cities represents Brazil — a diverse and vibrant Brazil, with people who are passionate about football, and places that already live and breathe the sport and that will now have the opportunity to leave a transformative legacy for their communities and for generations to come."
The 32 teams battling for the 2027 World Cup will begin their hunt on June 24th of that year, with the final taking place on July 25th.
Marta, Formiga help announce 2027 World Cup cities
To bolster the news, FIFA tapped famous Brazilians for its announcement video, including star futsal player Amandinha and two-time NWSL champion Debinha.
Also helping drop the eight cities were the country’s most iconic women's soccer legends, Marta — the World Cup's all-time leading scorer — and Formiga, the only athlete to compete in seven editions of the tournament.
"I won't be on the pitch in 2027, but I'm always ready to represent Brazilian football – even more so at a special moment like this," said the retired Formiga.
"I know every corner of our country, and I can tell you: Each of these cities is full of women's football talents who need support and inspiration," she continued. "The Women's World Cup will be an opportunity for them to see the greatest up close and think, 'If they can be there, so can I.' That's the impact that only an event of this size can have."
Using the 2027 World Cup — the first ever hosted in South America — to grow the women's game is top-of-mind for former player Mariléia "Michael Jackson" dos Santos, who now serves as the country's director of women's football promotion.
"We want to create a solid network that will last well beyond 2027," said dos Santos. "The idea is to decentralise the impact so that women's football flourishes in every corner of the country."
"It's a unique opportunity to change the game, and we're going to make the most of it because Brazilian women's football deserves it, and so do the girls in our country."
The 2025 WNBA preseason put together an exceptionally strong start this weekend, earning stellar viewership led by the fan-favorite Indiana Fever.
In the league's first-ever fully broadcast preseason, Sunday's exhibition between the Fever and the Brazil women's national team earned ESPN an average audience of 1.3 million viewers, with a peak at 1.6 million fans.
That average represents a 13% increase over the network's 2024 WNBA regular-season viewership per game.
Even more, Sunday's Fever audience surpassed the viewership marks of every NBA preseason matchup on ESPN since 2018, as well as topping the then-record number of fans who tuned into Game 1 of the 2024 WNBA Finals.
Sunday's pregame show WNBA Countdown also saw a big boost, averaging 571,000 viewers to mark a 71% year-over-year increase.
Fever, Clark fuel WNBA-leading attendance, viewership
The 108-44 Indiana victory was a homecoming for 2024 WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark, with the exhibition taking place at her alma mater, Iowa.
Like the clamor to tune into the game, all 15,500 seats at Carver-Hawkeye Arena — where Clark's No. 22 jersey was raised into the rafters in February — sold out in just 24 minutes.
The fanbase surrounding Clark and the Fever is notoriously enthusiastic, with demand for tickets to see Indiana on the road surpassing all other WNBA teams this season.
Similarly — as evidenced by Sunday's exhibition — the Fever drives significant viewership numbers. The WNBA is strategically capitalizing on that trend, granting Indiana more national broadcasts and streams than any other team in the league this season.
Aiming to add even more most-watched games to the network's docket, ESPN platforms snagged 10 of the Fever's 41 national broadcasts this season, including an ABC airing of Indiana's 2025 opener against regional rival Chicago on May 17th.
Elevating games to ESPN's flagship channel, Clark says, "really helps" grow the WNBA.
"As a competitor, these are the moments you live for, when the spotlight's on," Clark told reporters before Sunday's preseason clash. "We're on ESPN. This is a great opportunity for our team."
The US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame announced their Class of 2025 on Tuesday, with this year's iconic cohort headlined by tennis titan Serena Williams and track legend Allyson Felix.
Alongside four-time Olympic gold medalist Williams and seven-time gold medalist Felix — the most decorated woman in Olympic track and field history with 11 total medals — four other women and one women's team snagged spots in the 2025 class.
Joining the pair are gymnastics icon Gabby Douglas, a two-time team gold medalist and the first Black woman to take individual all-around gold in Olympic history, and three-time beach volleyball gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings.
Additional inductees include the gold medal-winning 2004 USA women's wheelchair basketball Paralympic team, five-time Paralympic gold medalist in track Marla Runyan — the only US athlete to have competed in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games — and multi-sport specialist Susan Hagel.
Hagel competed in six Paralympic Games across three different sports — archery, track and field, and wheelchair basketball — picking up four gold and two bronze medals along the way.
Barrier-breakers honored as Class of 2025 Legends
Also earning Hall of Fame honors are two trailblazing Black women, named as the Legends of the Class of 2025.
Renowned volleyball player and 1984 silver medalist Flo Hyman — whose work to bolster Title IX as well as her role helping Team USA to their first-ever Olympic medal in women's volleyball were crucial to growing the sport in the US — will be posthumously celebrated.
Honored alongside Hyman will be 1976 Olympic bronze medalist Anita DeFrantz, the first and only Black woman to medal in rowing.
DeFrantz, the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) first-ever woman member, is still helping to make Olympic history, casting the deciding vote to elect the IOC's first woman president this past March.
The Class of 2025 is the 18th overall group and first since 2022 to enter the Hall of Fame.
Following their July 12th induction, the US Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame will bloom to 210 individual and team members.
The USA Rugby women's 15s shattered the sport's US attendance record on Friday, welcoming 10,518 fans to Kansas City's CPKC Stadium for the Eagles' matchup against Canada.
Though the world No. 9 ranked US fell short in their come-from-behind push, falling 26-14 to No. 2 Canada in the opening game of the 2025 Pacific Four Series, Friday's crowd gave the players a massive off-field victory.
"To see the crowd be over 10,500 like that was absolutely fantastic in this women's purposely built stadium, and to debut rugby here in that stadium as well," said USA captain Kate Zackary after the game.
Even Canada's athletes lauded the significance of the record-setting crowd, despite the overwhelmingly US cheers from the home fans.
"Being here in North America and having 10,000 people coming to watch women's sports was so amazing," remarked Canada's Sarah-Maude Lachance.
Rugby's rise spurs exponential growth
After the Eagles secured Olympic bronze in rugby sevens last summer, the sport gained significant momentum.
The national attention captured by 2024 Olympians like superstar Ilona Maher earned USA Rugby a multimillion-dollar investment, helped fuel a new domestic league, and minted fresh fans en route to Friday's attendance record.
In the long-term, that growth could turn the US-hosted 2033 Rugby World Cup into a marquee national event.
For the rugby faithful, however, the biggest win is seeing those new to the sport become lifelong fans.
"Everyone I talked to after [Friday's] game who didn't know what rugby was, [I hope] has fallen in love with it," said Zachary.
How to attend the next USA Rugby game
The Eagles will take aim at breaking Friday's attendance record in Washington, DC, on July 19th, when they'll face No. 16 Fiji in a send-off game before August's 2025 Rugby World Cup in England.
Tickets to the Audi Field doubleheader, which also includes the US men's side against England, are available online now.
Three-time WNBA MVP A'ja Wilson officially joined the signature shoe ranks on Tuesday, when the first edition of the Las Vegas Aces star's Nike sneaker hit shelves — only to sell out within minutes.
Wilson is now the 14th WNBA athlete across all brands to receive her own signature shoe, joining current players like Sabrina Ionescu and retired legends including Sheryl Swoopes, Lisa Leslie, and Candace Parker.
With more colors already in the works, the 28-year-old's debut "A'One" shoe arrived in a bright "Pink A'ura" colorway — a hue also heavily used across Wilson's Nike apparel collection, which dropped at the same time as the sneakers.
The eight-piece collection includes foam slides, T-shirts, shorts, cropped tops, and a single-legged "A'Symmetric" compression tight — a nod to Wilson's on-court uniform.
"My first A'One Collection reflects both my vision for the future of the game and the inspirations that fuel my performance and style every day," said Wilson in the February announcement detailing her Nike collaboration.
Wilson honors family in A'One Nike ads
Both the design details in the A'One shoes and Nike's series of commercials celebrating the collection boast nods to those inspirations.
The sneakers include symbols representing Wilson's parents, plus a quote from her grandmother: "As a matter of fact, the best is yet to come."
Photos of Wilson's paternal grandparents, which hang in her childhood church, make an appearance in director Jenn Nkiru's Nike ad, which also featured cameos from her parents and former college coach, South Carolina boss Dawn Staley.
The WNBA icon herself took a star turn in a second Nike ad, collaborating with Malia Obama in a vignette directed by the 26-year-old former US First Daughter.
How to buy A'ja Wilson's signature Nike A'One shoe
While Nike has temporarily removed Wilson's "Pink A'ura" A'One sneaker from the sportswear giant's online store, more inventory will be released in the coming days.
In the meantime, Wilson's apparel collection is now available directly from Nike, with purchase options both online and at select retail locations.
Her sneaker's second colorway, entitled "Blue Fury," will drop in the same locations on May 15th.
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone maintained her 400-meter crown this weekend, completing her second straight 400-meter events sweep at the Grand Slam Track series' Miami meet on Sunday.
One month after completing the sweep at the first Grand Slam meet in Kingston, Jamaica, the 25-year-old US track star won Saturday's 400-meter hurdles with a time of 52.07 seconds before also taking Sunday's 400-meter flat event in 49.69 seconds — a race that earned McLaughlin-Levrone a $100,000 winner's check.
McLaughlin-Levrone has a veritable stranglehold on the 400-meter hurdles, dominating that race since her last loss at the 2019 World Championships.
In that span, she blasted through six world records across 12 straight victories — lowering the women's 400-meter hurdles world standard from 52.16 seconds to a blistering 50.37-second pace.
With two more Grand Slam meets in Philadelphia and LA in the coming weeks, McLaughlin-Levrone is considering a literal change of pace, temporarily switching to run the 100-meter events — a distance she hasn't competed in since 2018.
Should she take on the shorter sprints, McLaughlin-Levrone could find herself racing against the reigning Olympic champion in the 100-meter hurdles, Masai Russell — who notably posted the second-fastest time in the event's history, not to mention a new US record, by winning in 12.17 seconds on Friday.
How to watch the final two Grand Slam Track meets
McLaughlin-Levrone, Russell, and other track stars will next compete in the third Grand Slam Track meet in Philadelphia from May 30th through June 1st, before closing out the series in LA between June 27th and June 29th.
All 2025 Grand Slam Track meets stream live on Peacock.