This week London will take centre stage as the inaugural Women’s Champions Cup, the brand-new club competition in women’s football, comes to its conclusion. Four continental champions – Arsenal, Gotham FC, Corinthians and AS Far – will meet in Brentford on Wednesday for a place in the final, which will be held at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
With $2.3m (£1.68m) in prize money and a shiny new trophy on the line, it is far from insignificant for the teams involved. For the wider public, however, there remains a lack of understanding about what it really is and how it came to be introduced into an already crowded football space.
The arrival of this tournament marks Fifa’s first attempt to dip a toe into women’s club football. The quadrennial Women’s Club World Cup, first mooted by Gianni Infantino in 2019, was projected to start this year but was postponed until January 2028.
To fill the gap, they brought forward the introduction of this secondary competition that will act as an “annual touch point for clubs across the world” according to Fifa’s director of elite women’s football, Sarah Booth. It will be held every year bar when there is a Women’s Club World Cup and features six confederation champions. The opportunity to see teams who do not normally play each other will be the biggest draw of this competition.
In this inaugural edition, Wuhan Chegu Jiangda (AFC Champions League 2024-25 winners) beat Auckland United (OFC Women’s Champions League 2025) in the first round. They then faced AS Far (Caf Women’s Champions League 2025) in the next round in December.
The Moroccan champions came through that encounter in dramatic fashion, thanks to Hajar Saïd’s 89th-minute equaliser and Sanaâ Mssoudy’s extra-time winner to set up a semi-final date with Arsenal. The 26-year-old highly decorated forward will be one of the players the Gunners defence need to keep an eye on, having played a key role in the club’s success for the best part of a decade. Safa Banouk is another who is enjoying a strong season.
Renée Slegers’ side qualified automatically for the semi-finals after their Champions League victory over Barcelona last May. Along with Gotham FC, they will be among the favourites to take the title. While their form has been inconsistent recently, they come into Wednesday’s game off the back of a confidence-inducing victory against Chelsea.
The NWSL champions, Gotham FC, booked their spot in the tournament after narrowly beating Tigres in the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup. There is no doubt how seriously Juan Carlos Amorós’s side are taking this opportunity despite it happening in the off-season. They have spent the last couple of weeks on a training camp in Spain in order to prepare and possess plenty of world-class experience, including Rose Lavelle, Jaedyn Shaw, Esther González and Ann-Katrin Berger.
They take on Corinthians for a place in the final. The São Paulo-based side have won five consecutive Brazilian titles. Their penalty shootout victory over Deportivo Calí saw them win their fourth successive Copa Libertadores to qualify. Andressa Alves, Duda Sampaio and Tamires are among their household names back in Brazil while Jhonson and Victória were in fine goalscoring form.
“I do think the actual product will be compelling,” Jill Ellis, Fifa’s chief football officer, said. “So many players that play club football who don’t play for the national teams have never played against international competition before … I think there’s going to be some interest.”
“People have to understand that we’re growing this … so I think we’re excited to want to push for a high level but also a little bit realistic. We had a short runway. We’re trying to get this off the ground, but I think ultimately it will be a compelling product.”
The “short runway” was a reason why the venues for finals week were only announced in December, partnerships are still being announced and why the prize money was only confirmed on Friday. It also explains why the tournament has perhaps passed under the radar.
Meanwhile, controversies remain. One strong point of contention is the ongoing scheduling issue. England’s WSL Football said that the 2028 Women’s Club World Cup set to be played from 5-30 January “could be catastrophic” despite Fifa saying they had consulted key stakeholders. While a separate tournament, it only adds to the increased feeling that the calendar is already overcrowded at the top level. Another source of debate came when they announced that Kynisca, Michele Kang’s multi-club ownership organisation, would be a presenting partner of the inaugural tournament, raising potential conflicts of interest.
Those debates will no doubt rumble on but for this week, at least, the focus will turn to the action on the pitch. With the unknown comes the potential for new narratives and stories to be told and, at the end of it all, there will be a new champion, a chance for a club to claim that they are the best team in the world, for a short while at least.
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