CONCACAF adds new competitions, revamps World Cup qualifying

The CONCACAF is adding more matches.

The federation announced a revamped CONCACAF W Championship as well as a Women’s Gold Cup, with new matches increasing the frequency of games for teams by 118 percent.

“This is a seismic development for our women’s national team competitions and will transform the women’s game in Concacaf,” CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani said in a call.

“When we launched our Concacaf W strategy in 2019 we committed to providing more opportunities for all member associations. This new ecosystem wholeheartedly delivers on that and the inclusion of an inaugural Concacaf W Gold Cup as a central part it is a truly exciting step in our journey to further elevate women’s football. I can’t wait to see these matches and new competitions unfold on the pitch and hope they inspire future generations of women and girls to play and develop a passion for the game.”

The W Championship, which will be held in 2022, will serve as a qualifier for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2024 Olympics.

Essentially, the qualifying process for both the World Cup and the Olympics is now combined. The hope is that this will create some suspense and give players something at stake in the final, as opposed to having the two teams in the final already qualified.

“Now when you go to the W Championship, the way it was structured where the teams that got to the final, yeah, it was a final but it didn’t really mean anything because you already qualified to the World Cup,” Montagliani added.

“Now this final means a lot because you’ve qualified for the World Cup, but guess what? If you win it, you qualify for the Olympics. So it gives even more bite to our W Championship.”

The USWNT will begin the first phase of the new qualifying in November 2021 and April 2022. The draw for the CONCACAF W Qualifiers will take place on Saturday, Aug. 21 at 3 p.m. ET.