Women's World Cup host vote will still be secret
FIFA will still decide the host of the Women's World Cup in secret, unlike the new open vote held last year for the host of the 2026 men's tournament.
The 2023 bidding process, in which Australia intends to take part thanks for $5 million in federal government funding, was launched on Tuesday, with FIFA adopting many of the rigorous checks and scrutiny that prospective men's hosts now have to go through.
But the final decision is a very different process.
Following corruption investigations into the vote for men's hosts in 2018 and 2022, FIFA removed the decision from its ruling committee and gave it to all member associations.
When it came to deciding the 2026 men's hosts last year, the votes were made public after the FIFA Congress chose the joint bid from the US, Mexico and Canada over Morocco's entry.
But in March 2020 it will be the FIFA Council, a select group of 37 people that meets in private, deciding where the women's top players will compete in 2023.
"FIFA's Statutes explicitly stipulate that the selection of venues for the final competitions of all tournaments rests with the FIFA Council with the exception of the FIFA World Cup, where there power lies with the Congress," world soccer's governing body said in a statement on Tuesday.
FIFA on Tuesday asked countries to make an expression of interest in bidding by March 15, complete the bidding registration by April 16 and submit bid books by October 4.
Every state and territory has expressed interest in hosting a match should a confirmed Australian 2023 bid prove successful.
The FFA declared its intentions in June 2017 and last year launched a AusBid2023.com website for Australians to #GetOnside and submit registrations of support.
FFA boss David Gallop said at the time he hoped the bid winner would be known around the time of the next World Cup in France in June-July 2019.
Colombia has also announced plans to bid for the 2023 tournament.
AP