Draw sets groups for 2025/26 Concacaf W Qualifiers   | OneFootball

Miami, FL – Concacaf today conducted the official draw for the 2025/26 Concacaf W Qualifiers, the preliminary stage of the 2026 Concacaf W Championship.Next year’s W Championship will serve as the Confederation’s qualifier for both the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 and the 2028 LA Summer Olympics and is the first of three major centralized tournaments in the Confederation’s revamped women’s national team calendar, unveiled in September. The made-for-TV draw event in Miami, Florida, was hosted by Sports and Entertainment anchor Ana Jurka and featured opening remarks from Concacaf General Secretary Philippe Moggio. Concacaf Chief Football Competitions Officer Carlos Fernandez conducted the draw with the assistance of former players Shirley Cruz (Costa Rica) and Lauryn Hutchinson (Trinidad and Tobago). The 2025/26 Concacaf W Qualifiers will feature 29 Member Associations — excluding the region’s two highest-ranked nations — and will be played during the FIFA Women’s International Match Windows in November 2025, and February and April 2026.  The 29 participating Member Associations have been drawn into six groups, as follows: Group A: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, United States Virgin IslandsGroup B:  Jamaica, Guyana, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and BarbudaGroup C: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Bermuda, Grenada, Cayman IslandsGroup D: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Belize, AnguillaGroup E: Panama, Cuba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Curacao, ArubaGroup F: Trinidad & Tobago, El Salvador, Honduras, BarbadosAt the conclusion of the Concacaf W Qualifiers, the six group winners will join the United States and Canada (the two highest-ranked teams) in the eight-team Concacaf W Championship. The match schedule for the 2025/26 Concacaf W Qualifiers will be announced at a later date. 2026 Concacaf W Championship  The W Championship will be played in November 2026 and serve as the Confederation’s qualifier for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027 and the 2028 LA Summer Olympics.   The eight teams participating in the five-round direct elimination knockout-style competition will include the United States and Canada, and the six group winners of the W Qualifiers.    The competition will begin with the Quarterfinals, followed by a Play-In, Semifinals, Third-Place Match, and Final. To determine the Quarterfinal pairings and each team's path to the Final, Concacaf will rank teams 1-8 based on the FIFA Women’s Rankings, with the highest-ranked team facing the lowest-ranked team.    At the conclusion of the Quarterfinals, the four matchup winners will qualify for the Semifinals and guarantee their place in the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027, while the four losers will progress to a Play-In, from where the 2 winning teams will each battle for a spot in the FIFA Women’s World Cup Intercontinental Play Off.   The W Championship finalists will also secure a berth in the 2028 LA Summer Olympics Games Women’s Football Tournament. Should the United States finish as one of the two W Championship finalists, then Concacaf’s second berth will be awarded to the competition’s third-place winner (based on the precedent of host nations’ automatic qualification for previous editions of the Olympic Football Tournament at the Summer Olympic Games).  Further details on next year’s W Championship will be announced at a later date.   The United States is the current champion of the Concacaf W Championship, having secured the 2022 title with a 1–0 win over Canada in the final held in Monterrey, Mexico. The tournament also served as the regional qualifier for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, and Haiti joined the United States in the global event, marking the first time six nations from the Confederation qualified for a FIFA Women’s World Cup.