TWENTY years ago in Pasadena, a world record 90,185 spectators attended the 1999 Women’s World Cup Final. 

Few stadiums in the world could accommodate a crowd in excess of that. One is Soccer City in Johannesburg, the venue of the 2010 Men’s World Cup Final and the site of Nelson Mandela’s first speech after his release from prison in 1990. 

Two weeks ago, its chance of becoming the first stadium this century to host both the men’s and women’s World Cup Finals moved a step closer as the South African FA (SAFA) formally submitted their expression of interest to host the ninth Fifa Women’s World Cup four years from now.

Including this summer’s finals in France, only three continents have hosted the eight tournaments to date.

As we approach Fifa’s March deadline for submitting an interest to stage the 2023 finals, Australia and Japan have come forward from the Asian confederation, New Zealand from Oceania and nine years after staging the first-ever African World Cup, SAFA acting CEO Russell Paul has followed up his country’s long-standing interest in creating another historical landmark. “It is our intention to bring the first Women’s World Cup to the African continent much the same way as we brought the first men’s World Cup to the African continent.”

This summer, nine French cities will host the 24-team tournament and nine South African cities — Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Nelspruit, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth, Pretoria and Rustenburg — staged matches in 2010. 

Only five cities were used in a scaled-down Africa Cup of Nations three years later and as yet, Paul is unable to say how widely the tournament would be spread across his vast country. 

“We will go through the process. We don’t even know what the requirements are yet. Once we’ve received the requirements from Fifa, which they will only release in bits and pieces in March and April, then we will be in a position to determine at what level that bid is. It’s about staging a World Cup that is pleasing to the fans and pleasing to the football public at large.”

South African football journalist Mark Gleeson believes that many of the same regions will be called upon again for political reasons. “They have to spread the tournament out wide because they will probably look for quite a bit of assistance from the government and the provincial governments.” 

According to Paul, “we also have a process within our government. We then would have to present those requirements to them. Having said that, we do have world-class facilities in all nine major cities within this country. 

“Everything is still in place from 2010 and there have obviously been additional improvements since then.” 

Gleeson agrees. “The stadiums are still immaculate after 2010, they are all used on a regular basis. I don’t think there will be any infrastructural problem. There are probably more hotels now than there were before.”

What Paul believes South Africa has over the other candidates bidding is their recent history in staging major senior tournaments. 

“I think our track record speaks for itself, we’ve hosted the most successful, in our view, World Cup in the world for Fifa from the men’s perspective. Those facilities and infrastructure are still there so we don’t see any challenges around that. 

“We do believe we offer literally a plug-and-plug scenario for Fifa to be able to come into South Africa. It is our view that all things being equal, government approval etc, we would be able to stage something like that within a flash.”

While Australia, Japan and New Zealand are established countries for the women’s game, in South Africa, Fifa would have the added incentive of growing the game in a new market. The national team nicknamed Banyana Banyana (The Girls) qualified for their first-ever Women’s World Cup by reaching the final of the Africa Cup of Nations last November. 

Paul claims this has led to a massive increase in interest in the game. “We’ve seen a very big traction for women’s sport in general and football in particular with their qualification for the World Cup. 

“It’s been their first qualification, we’ve worked hard at it, since late 2015, to get them to where they are. We’ve seen major traction from the support. We had over 22-25,000 people in the [Cape Town] stadium when they played Sweden and the Netherlands in January.”

Fifa Chief Women’s Football Officer Sarai Bareman has said that “we look forward to receiving hosting submissions for the Fifa Women’s World Cup 2023, to see how potential host countries will aim to promote the ultimate competition in women’s football, and create a sustainable legacy that will inspire upcoming generations of young girls and women to get involved in the game.” 

The tournament will also “play a key strategic role as part of Fifa’s efforts to double the number of female players to 60 million by 2026.”

Paul believes that taking the tournament to South Africa has the potential to change the lives of girls throughout the continent. “It’s an opportunity for them to see the stage that they can play on and to bring that stage right to their doorstep from a women’s sport perspective and football in particular and creating those opportunities. 

“We’ve seen what happened for Banyana Banyana as we’ve been playing them around the world, the doors have opened up for a number of players who’ve got college bursaries at universities and improved their education and also been to get contracts around the world at various clubs.”

However, Gleeson thinks compared to the men’s game, public interest in women’s football in Africa remains limited. “Given how many of the stadiums were not full in 2010 for the men’s World Cup, I find out it very hard to believe there will be a decent turnout for the women’s one. 

“They really have to hype it up over the next three or four years to sell it to the public. At this stage, there is very little market and very little history. It’s not like Europe or the Americas. The success of the Banyanas has obviously heightened the interest. 

“As we head towards France now, there will be a lot of hype. It is definitely growing but it’s still very much an infant force.”

He therefore believes South Africa remains an outsider to stage the tournament.

“When you consider what happened with the 2023 Rugby World Cup recently, the fact that South Africa lost out to France even though perhaps the game here is much more developed. 

“The finances just didn’t make sense to World Rugby. Our currency and economy lets us down a little bit on that scale, we find it difficult now to compete internationally. 

“That selling point about being the first in Africa, I don’t think holds as much emotive water as it did maybe when we won the right to host the 2010 World Cup.”

Countries interested in staging the 2023 Women’s World Cup have until Friday March 15 to submit an expression of interest in hosting the tournament to Fifa who will make a final decision on which nation will awarded the ninth finals on Friday March 20 2020.