CCTV reporter talks about the expansion of the Women s World Cup: It will not affect the Chinese women s football team s participation in the World Cup in the short term

05 May 11th FIFA announced that starting from the 2031 Women's World Cup, the Women's World Cup will be expanded to 48 teams. CCTV's special reporter Ai Tingting introduced the relevant situation in the program.

Aitingting said: I think the impact of this expansion can have from the following aspects. First of all, the most obvious impact is that with the expansion of the World Cup, more women's football teams from countries and regions will have the opportunity to participate in this top-level event, especially for those underdeveloped football areas, or those where women's football is relatively late, such as Africa and Southeast Asia, etc., so through the expansion of the Women's World Cup, these emerging teams can quickly accumulate experience in international competitions.

Another influence will increase its diversity for the entire Women's World Cup. With the expansion of the army, we will see more creative duels on the World Cup stage. In the past 2023, the Women's World Cup was the first time that the women's World Cup expanded to 32 teams, and many new records have been produced. For example, in this World Cup, it was the first time that all teams on all continents have won at least one victory in the World Cup main competition. In the past, for example, teams from Africa and Oceania, no team could win a victory during the entire World Cup, but this record was changed in the 2023 Australian and New Zealand Women's World Cup. In addition, in the 2023 Australian and New Zealand Women's World Cup, teams from five continents have entered the knockout stage, which has a lot to do with the expansion of the World Cup.

Of course, any new policy will have an impact on all aspects. There will be some different concerns about this expansion. For example, some people may worry that due to more teams participating, the gap in strength between the teams will inevitably widen further. There may be very huge scores in some games, including the overall intensity of the game. In addition, the expansion of the World Cup will also put higher requirements on the host countries and regions. Since the number of participating teams has increased to 48 teams, it means that the host needs to provide more hotels, more venues, training grounds, traffic security and other series.

In addition, more people may be concerned about what impact the expansion of the World Cup will have on our Chinese women's football team. From the perspective of participating in the World Cup, there should not be too much impact in the short term, because in the past, the Asian region had a total of 6 tickets. It is said that after the expansion of the army, the number of places in the Asian region may increase to 8 to 9. However, whether it is 6 tickets or 8 to 9 tickets, based on the current ranking of the Chinese women's football team, it should not have much impact on us.

Of course, one thing worth noting is that starting from 2031, the Asian qualifiers of the Women's World Cup will become a separate event. In the past, the number of places in the Asian region was generated through the Asian Cup. For example, in the 2023 Australian and New Zealand Women's World Cup, there are 6 places in the Asian region, so the host Australia automatically occupied one place. Therefore, the five best teams in the Asian Cup automatically won the number of places in the World Cup.

So from 2031, the qualifiers in the Asian region will become a separate event. The current plan is to have three rounds of competitions. The first round will be played by teams with relatively low rankings in Asia. With the current situation of the Chinese team, we should start from the second round. The rules of the game have changed, which means that the team will change regardless of the coordination between the training time and the league, including the psychological and physiological adjustments of the players, especially the team's bench depth has also been put forward higher requirements, because we need to take more injuries and fatigue into account, and all of these require the Chinese women's football team to adjust slowly in the next time.