Malta women among record 51 entrants in upcoming 2023 World Cup draw

The Malta women’s national team will be one of the record 51 entrants in the upcoming 2023 World Cup draw, scheduled for April 30.

Malta, ranked 94, have moved up one pot following the successful UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 qualifying campaign and will be now placed in the fifth among the six pots that were announced by UEFA.

In Pot 5, Malta will be joined Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Cyprus, Faroe Islands and Latvia. Moreover, Mark Gatt’s side have Turkey who played Malta in a friendly last year and Georgia, whom Malta beat twice in the recent qualifiers, joining them in this pot.

In the previous World Cup qualifiers – for France 2019 – the old format was still applied with Malta being among the teams that had to play a pre-qualifier group that included Albania, Greece and Kosovo.

Malta did not advance to the main qualifying round after finishing third in the qualifiers with four points having drawn with Albania 0-0 and defeated Kosovo 3-1.

In this edition, Cyprus are making their Women’s World Cup debut while Luxembourg take part in a full qualifying group stage for the first time.

The 2023 World Cup qualifiers are set to start in the international week between September 13 and 21 of this year.

The winners of the nine qualifying groups will progress directly to the finals with the runners-up taking part in the UEFA play-offs in October 2022.

The next Women’s World Cup is set to be hosted by Australia and New Zealand.