The official draw for the finals takes place from 19:30 CET at the Frankfurt Congress Centre, where each of the 16 participating teams, including OFC representatives New Zealand, will finally find out who they will be facing at next year’s festival of women’s football.
The 45-minute show will also reveal where the 32 matches will be played and which team will compete against hosts Germany in the opening game at the Berlin Olympiastadion on June 26.
“The draw marks the start of the real countdown to the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter says. “We’re all excited to see which teams the draw will pair together.”
New Zealand’s Football Ferns qualified for the prestigious tournament by winning the OFC Women’s Nations Cup in Auckland during September and October. They competed in the last women’s world cup in 2007 in China but failed to take a point after losing their three group matches against Brazil, Denmark and China PR.
The draw ceremony will be hosted by FIFA Head of Women’s Competitions Tatjana Haenni, while goalkeeping legend Oliver Kahn and Adriana Karembeu, top model and women’s football ambassador, will conduct the draw. German pop-rock quartet Wir Sind Helden are set to provide the entertainment.
“We’re honoured to be a part of it,” the band says.
Over 600 guests and around 200 media representatives are expected at the Frankfurt Congress Centre. The likes of Worawi Makudi, FIFA Executive Committee member, and Steffi Jones, President of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), will be joined by Governor of Hessen Volker Bouffier, Mayor of Frankfurt Petra Roth, DFB (German FA) President Dr. Theo Zwanziger and DFB General Secretary Wolfgang Niersbach, as well as many other ambassadors from the nine host cities and 16 participating nations.
Germany, only the second European nation to host a FIFA Women’s World Cup after Sweden in 1995, have made a record nine stadiums available for the tournament in the host cities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Augsburg, Dresden, Bochum, Wolfsburg, Leverkusen, Sinsheim and Monchengladbach.
“In addition to smooth organisation, we want to present ourselves as excellent hosts and lay the foundations for a wonderful atmosphere at the first ever FIFA Women’s World Cup to be held in Germany,” LOC President Jones says.
Germany captain and record FIFA Women’s World Cup goalscorer Birgit Prinz is also full of enthusiasm.
“I can’t wait to play in all those sold-out World Cup stadiums,” she says.
For more on the world game visit www.fifa.com