(Reuters) – 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 yesterday.

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

“The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 in Australia and New Zealand will be ground-breaking in many ways,” said a delighted Chris Nikou, president of Football Federation Australia (FFA).

“Not only will it be the first ever co-confederation hosted FIFA World Cup and the first ever FIFA Women’s World Cup in the Asia-Pacific region, but we will unlock the huge potential for growth in women’s football in the Asia-Pacific region.”

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.