The FIFA Women's World Cup 2011 will be the sixth instance of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's football world championship tournament. It has been scheduled to take place between 26 June and 17 July 2011, and it will be held in Germany which won the right to host the event in October 2007.
Sixteen teams will compete at the World Cup finals. Two-time defending world champions Germany have automatically qualified as the host nation. Other national teams began qualification in their continental confederations in 2009 and 2010.
Venues
After the German Football Association (DFB) expressed its intention to bid for the Women's World Cup, 23 German cities applied to host World Cup games. Twelve cities were chosen for the official bidding dossier handed over to FIFA in August 2007. On 30 September 2008, the DFB executive committee decided to use nine stadiums for the tournament; the original candidates Essen, Magde burg and Bielefeld were not chosen as World Cup venues.
The opening game will be held at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the venue of the 2006 men's World Cup Final; it will be the only match played in Berlin. The final of the tournament will take place at the Commerzbank-Arena in Frankfurt, the venue of the 2005 men's Confederations Cup final. The Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach and Frankfurt's Commerzbank-Arena are scheduled to host the semi-finals. The third place play-off will take place at the Rhein-Neckar-Arena in Sinsheim.
Since 2007, five of the stadiums were either newly built (Augsburg, Dresden and Sinsheim) or remodeled (Bochum and Leverkusen). Seven stadiums are the home grounds for German Bundesliga clubs. Compared to the 2006 men's World Cup, several smaller venues were chosen; six stadiums have a capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 seats. According to DFB general secretary Wolfgang Niersbach, the Women's World Cup should open at the stadium where the men's World Cup ended in 2006. All cities will stage a total of four matches, with the exceptions of Berlin and Mönchengladbach; the latter will host three games. The total capacity of the nine venues is roughly 330,000. Overall, approximately one million tickets will be available.
Several of the stadiums might be known by different names during the tournament, as FIFA prohibits sponsorship of stadiums unless the stadium sponsors are also official FIFA sponsors. No decision on stadium names has been announced yet. Capacity data according to the DFB.
Draw
The final draw was held on 29 November 2010 in Frankfurt following the completion of the qualification phase.[18] On 28 November 2010 the Organizing Committee announced the draw procedure
| Pot 1 | Pot 2 | Pot 3 | Pot 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
 Germany (A1) Japan (B1) United States (C1) Brazil (D1) |  Australia North Korea Canada Mexico |  Nigeria Equatorial Guinea New Zealand Colombia |  England France Sweden Norway |
- Pot 1
- The groups of the four seeded teams were predetermined before the draw.
- Pot 2
- Australia and Korea DPR could not be drawn against fellow AFC qualifier Japan in Group B. Similarly, Canada and Mexico could not be drawn against the other CONCACAF qualifier (the United States) in Group C.
- Pot 3
- To avoid two CONMEBOL teams being drawn into Group D, if Colombia were not the first team drawn from Pot 3 then the side drawn would be placed directly into Group D.
- Pot 4
- Group A would be the group with two European teams.
Group stage
Where teams finish the group stage with an equal number of points, the ranking in the group is determined based on:
- superior goal difference in all matches
- greater number of goals scored in all matches
- greater number of points obtained in matches between tied teams
- superior goal difference in matches between tied teams
- greater number of goals scored in matches between tied teams
- fair play criteria based on red and yellow cards received
- drawing of lots
