Two nations down, twenty-two to go. New Zealand have confirmed they'll compete at next month's FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup in Poland, joining France as the only teams to publicly commit to a tournament sitting at the centre of football's biggest governance crisis in years.
"The tournament is critical in the development for the women's game," a New Zealand Football spokesperson told Reuters. That's a reasonable position — and it's also a quiet signal that not every federation is willing to let young players pay the price for a dispute between suits at the top of the sport.
What's actually at stake here
The backdrop matters. UEFA's 55 member associations unanimously backed a boycott of FIFA events after Infantino floated — then dropped — a plan to sell 20% of World Cup commercial rights to private investors for roughly $4.2 billion. UEFA hasn't backed down. Last week the federation restated its position bluntly: the conditions for participation "have not been met" and it has "lost confidence in Gianni Infantino's presidency."
That's not a polite disagreement. That's a full breakdown in trust at the summit of world football.
England's FA and Canada Soccer declined to comment. U.S. Soccer is expected to show but won't say so officially. The silence from the bigger European nations is telling — and it means the tournament's field could look very different from what was planned.
Women's football caught in the crossfire
The Under-20 World Cup is just the opening act. FIFA's Under-17 Women's World Cup follows in October in Morocco, and European qualifying for the 2027 Women's World Cup is already scheduled. If this dispute drags on, women's football loses competitive windows that can't simply be rescheduled.
Poland insists preparations are on track and that no team has formally withdrawn. Technically accurate. But "no formal withdrawal" is a long way from "everyone's coming."
A source close to weekend confederation talks told Reuters there was acknowledgement that alternative tournaments might eventually need discussing. "Those talks have not yet been had and it is hoped they will not be necessary," they said. That's the optimistic reading. The less optimistic one is that women's football is about to become the proving ground for who blinks first.
