The United States and Mexico bid to co-host the 2027 women’s World Cup

The United States and Mexico launched a joint bid to host the 2027 women’s World Cup on Wednesday, a move that would bring the planet’s biggest women’s soccer tournament a year after the countries and Canada host the men’s World Cup in 2026.

“The United States has always been a global leader for the women’s game, and we would be honored to co-host the world’s premier event for women’s soccer along with Mexico,” U.S. Soccer Federation president Cindy Parlow Cone said in a statement. “Hosting the 2027 women’s World Cup provides us an incredible opportunity to cap off two historic years of World Cup soccer in the Concacaf region, helping us continue to grow the game among our confederation association ... The United States and Mexico want to continue to push the envelope for the development of women’s soccer across the entire region.”

It’s a dramatic turn of events for the U.S. Soccer Federation, which had signaled for many months that it was planning to bid for 2031. There had been a desire to bid for 2027 a few years ago, when Carlos Cordeiro became president, aiming to bring three straight years of global soccer spectacles to American soil: the 2026 and 2027 World Cups and the 2028 Olympics.

But when Cordeiro was run out in 2020 over the governing body using sexist language in a filing in the women’s team’s equal pay lawsuit, the 2027 idea seemed to moved to he back burner. In August 2021, a U.S. Soccer spokesperson told The Inquirer that a 2027 bid was off the table. It stayed off through Cordeiro’s campaign to win back his old job last year, when he said hesitation over going for ‘27 was a mistake. Cone beat Cordeiro in an election held in March of last year, and that seemed to settle the question again.

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By then, there was already a big bid on the table from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. There have since been further moves to bid from South Africa and Brazil, and last summer Mexico started measuring the potential for a solo bid.

Other factors also played big roles in the considerations. Last November, China started moving to ready a bid for 2031. And behind the scenes on U.S. soil, many power-brokers believed it would be too much to ask sponsors to go to the well for three years in a row, with the 2026 and 2028 buildups underway.

But behind the scenes, things were moving in a different direction.

FIFA has a deadline of Friday for bidders to express initial interest. Official agreements to bid are due by May 19, and formal bids are due on Dec. 8. There will be a series of workshops for bidders at this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The official announcement said more details on the U.S.-Mexico bid will be unveiled near the May 19 milestone.

“Women’s football in Mexico has experienced sustained growth over the last five years, and its development, both on and off the field, coupled with the female empowerment it has achieved and will continue to achieve, is one of the strategic priorities of the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol,” the FMF’s president Yon de Luisa said. “It is with pleasure that we are teaming up again with the U.S. Soccer Federation in the pursuit of this World Cup for our region, which will undoubtedly be historic.”

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Coincidentally, FIFA’s deadline came on the same day the U.S. men’s team played Mexico in a friendly in Glendale, Ariz. Cone, who won the 1999 World Cup and two Olympic gold medals as a player, revealed the bid for the first time on HBO Max’s pregame show for the game.

“We didn’t want to do a bid alone,” Cone said on the broadcast. “We reached out to Mexico and they jumped right in. While we’re enemies tonight in between the lines, we obviously collaborate and want to help to grow the region here in Concacaf.”

The bid is likely to also accelerate the push to equalize prize money at the men’s and women’s World Cups. FIFA president Gianni Infantino said last month that he aims to equalize the sums for the 2026-27 cycle, and U.S. Soccer has been among the planet’s most vocal proponents of getting it done.

If the U.S.-Mexico bid is successful, it would mark the third time that this country hosts the women’s World Cup, after bidding for it in 1999 and stepping in late to host in 2003 amid the SARS epidemic in China.

Philadelphia was one of the host cities in the latter tournament, and will be a men’s World Cup host city in 2026. Mexico has never hosted a women’s World Cup, but hosted men’s World Cups in 1970 and ‘86. The U.S. also hosted the men’s World Cup in 1994.

The Americans are four-time women’s World Cup champions, in 1991, ‘99, 2015 and ‘19. Only they and Germany (2003 and ‘07) have won back-to-back titles, and no nation has won three in a row. Nor has any nation won the Olympics as a reigning World Cup champion; the U.S. joined the list of teams that havent when it lost in the semifinals in Tokyo in 2021.

If the U.S. fails to win the title in Australia/New Zealand or at next year’s Olympics in Paris, a successful 2027 hosting bid would set the stage for a dramatic run to history on home soil after that.

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