The Guardian has revealed how UEFA will select the six teams that will take part in the first ever FIFA Women’s Club World Cup in 2028.
The 2028 FIFA Women’s Club World Cup is likely to take place in California, with Los Angleles and San Diego to host some of the games.
The tournament will take place from January 5th to 30th, 2028. 19 teams will be selected from the six confederations, there will be a play-in round with six teams, and the three winners of that round will join thirteen other teams to form four group of four teams.
The slot allocation is as follows:
- AFC 2+1:
- CAF 2+1:
- Concacaf 2+1: (Gotham City, Club America)
- CONMEBOL: 2+1
- UEFA 5+1 : (Arsenal FC, FC Barcelona)
- OFC 0+1:
What the Guardian revealed is UEFA will select their six teams as follows: All the UEFA Women Champions League winners from 2024 to 2027 will get the direct slots, and the clubs with the highest five-year coefficient will get the last direct sport play-in spots. They also mentioned that they will only select two teams from each league.
FC Barcelona and Arsenal FC are the two European clubs that have already qualified due to their previous UWCL wins. The current tournament winner will also qualify, so that leaves two direct places and one play-in place, or three direct places and one play-in should Barca or Arsenal win the 2027 tournament.
As mentioned above, the other qualified teams will be selected from the five-year club ranking at the end of the 2026/27 season. Looking at the table, the top-ranked team is FC Barcelona, and they are already in. Next is OL Lyonnes, who should get one of the two remaining direct places. In third place are Chelsea FC, who should get the last direct place.
Then the play-in place should go to FC Bayern, who are currently in fourth place. The team currently in fifth position – Arsenal – could overtake Bayern, but they have already qualified.
The team in sixth place Wfl Wolfbsurg is 17.750 points behind Bayern and will not get enough points through the UWEC tournament to overtake them. Of course the teams’ positions could slightly change as the end of the season ranking will be the decider.
Arsenal FC could overtake FC Bayern, and Wfl Wolfbsurg are under threat from Real Madrid 2.000 points behind them, Paris SG 6.500 points behind them and AS Roma 8.500 points behind them.
So the six UEFA teams that will take part in the 2028 FIFA Women’s Club World Cup should be: FC Barcelona, Arsenal FC, UEFA WCL 2027 winners, OL Lyonnes, Chelsea FC, FC Bayern. Should one of those five teams win the 2027 tournament, the next team in line Wfl Wolfsburg will be the sixth team.
Should Manchester City FC win the UEFA WCL 2027 tournament, they will take one of direct spots, and will remove Chelsea from the tournament, as two WSL teams maximum will qualify. That would then open the door for the sixth-ranked team to qualify.
Arsenal will therefore have another attempt at glory having already won the highest club tournaments so far available to UEFA teams. The Gunners have won the WCL (twice) and been crowned best team in the world by winning the FIFA Women Champions Cup in 2026.
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