Australia and New Zealand named hosts for 2023 Women's World Cup

== RESENDING WITH FULL SHOTLIST ==

VIDEO SHOWS: PRESS CONFERENCE WITH GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT

SHOWS: ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (JUNE 25, 2020) (FIFA - NO RESALES)

1. GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT, AT PRESS CONFERENCE

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CHRIS NIKOU, PRESIDENT OF FOOTBALL FEDERATION AUSTRALIA, SAYING:

"Today FIFA councillors made not one but two countries extremely happy, and our football families here are rejoicing. We are pleased with what we have been given, we know that there's work to be done but our pledge to the FIFA family is that we will leave no stone unturned to produce the best Women's World Cup, and to help FIFA meet its objectives around the women's game globally and more immediately in the Asia-Pacific region."

3. PRESS CONFERENCE

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT, SAYING:

"After the men's World Cup it's the biggest sporting event of one sport generally around the world. And we need to build on that and that's why we don't just want to sit and wait until 2023 because we have ambitious targets in terms of not only doubling the number of women and girls playing football, but we want to make it part of society, we want women's football to be part of society."

5. PRESS CONFERENCE

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT, SAYING:

"I believe maybe for the future we should bring, and I mentioned this to the council members earlier as well, and to the confederations presidents yesterday as well, we should bring maybe this decision as well to the FIFA Congress to decide. Because there is no reason to treat men and women differently. Why the men's World Cup has to be decided by the Congress and the women's by the council doesn't really make much sense to me.

"We can have a more democratic process even by holding the congress, the member associations of FIFA, and I think this is something we need to consider and think about for the future."

7. PRESS CONFERENCE

8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT, SAYING:

"Maybe from all of these proposals I made, I made five proposals last year, maybe actually the sixth proposal is the best one, and it was not for me so we have to leave to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, it was the proposed in the press conference by the president of the French Football Federation, who said the Women's World Cup should take place every two years rather than every four years, because we need to boost women's football and there is nothing more important than organising such a World Cup, in addition to participating of course."

9. PRESS CONFERENCE

10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) GIANNI INFANTINO, FIFA PRESIDENT, SAYING:

"I believe South America should have a Women's World Cup, definitely. Definitely South America should have one in the near future, that's why maybe the World Cup every two years is a good option in this respect because with a World Cup you can really boost women's football in a continent which is football crazy like South America."

11. PRESS CONFERENCE

STORY: Australia and New Zealand were handed the right to host the 2023 Women's World Cup soccer tournament by a comfortable margin after a vote by the FIFA Council on Thursday.

Their joint proposal beat a rival bid from Colombia to host the tournament which is being expanded to 32 teams.

Japan, who had also put forward a bid to stage the event, pulled out on Monday after they were ranked below the joint bid by world governing body FIFA's evaluation report.

The report highlighted the infrastructure and organisational advantages of the Australia/New Zealand bid which FIFA believed would make for a commercially successful tournament.

There had been media reports that the vote could be tight with UEFA's European representatives backing Colombia but in the end the margin of victory was wide with Australia and New Zealand gaining 22 votes to Colombia's 13.

The 2019 World Cup in France was hailed as a watershed for global interest in the women's game and FIFA President Gianni Infantino personally drove the campaign to increase the field to 32 teams from 24 for 2023.

Infantino had also expressed a preference for the successful Australia/New Zealand bid during the FIFA Council meeting.

Colombia, who were hoping to become the first South American nation to hold the tournament, were disappointed at the decision but vowed to keep fighting to host a major FIFA event.

"We wanted the seat of the Women's World Cup 2023 for Colombia and we gave everything to get it," the country's sports Ministry wrote on twitter.

"We will work more strongly to bring another World Cup to Colombia. With the efforts of all, women's soccer (here)...will keep growing."

Infantino said the women's tournament should head to South America soon and suggested that increasing the regularity of the tournament to every two years, instead of a four-year gap, was worth considering.

"It is something we will look at," he told reporters after praising the bid process's transparency.

FIFA published details of their bid evaluation process and released all the individual votes of members of the FIFA Council, in contrast to the secrecy of some of the hosting votes in the past.