FIFA Picks Chile, Poland to Host U-20 Men, Women Competitions

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) has selected Chile as the host of the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2025 and Poland as the host of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2026.

The decision was taken after the FIFA Council met ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup 2023 semi-finals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with youth competitions an important item on the agenda.

Speaking on the choices, FIFA President, Mr Gianni Infantino said, “Since 1962, Chile has organised FIFA events at the highest level, most recently the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2015. The country’s organisational experience coupled with the passion of the Chilean fans will provide a fantastic setting for the stars of tomorrow.”

“Poland is a country with a magnificent football tradition and hosted a memorable edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup in 2019, in which emerging stars like Erling Haaland made a great impression. Hosting the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2026 will be a new milestone in Poland’s football history and one that will boost women’s football in the country and across the world,” he added.

The slot allocation for both the FIFA U-20 World Cup 2025 and the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2026 are the same as each other and remain unchanged from the previous editions of both competitions with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC); Confederation of African Football (CAF); The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (Concacaf) and South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) all get four slots, Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) with two and the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) gets five and the one host country totals 24 teams.

As part of FIFA’s efforts to further professionalise the women’s game, the council also approved the governing framework for a training compensation system for women’s football to encourage the development of youth players, protect the investment of the training clubs and contribute to the competitive balance and sustainability of women’s football.

FIFA will subsequently draft the relevant regulations, and a task force will be established to finalise the technical details, a statement said.

Intending to modernise the applicable regulatory framework for national dispute resolution chambers and to provide clarity and the necessary legal certainty concerning their jurisdiction and structure, the FIFA Council approved the National Dispute Resolution Chamber Recognition Principles and its Annexe 1 (National Dispute Resolution Chamber Standard Regulations – 2023 edition).