As the men’s European Championship is entering its latter stages in Germany, it is exactly one year until Women’s Euro 2025 begins in Switzerland.

In 365 days, the hosts will get things under way at St Jakob-Park in Basel and holders England will be hoping to defend their title.

In the bidding process to host the competition, Switzerland beat Poland and France as well as a combined bid from Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. It is the Swiss’s first major tournament since 2008 when they jointly hosted the men’s European Championship with Austria.

“This is an historic day for Switzerland, the SFA (Swiss Football Association) and women’s football,” said Dominique Blanc, president of the SFA upon being confirmed as the winning bidder in April 2023. “This major step will shape the development of women’s football at all levels.”

Yet the lead-up to the tournament has been disrupted by concerns around the budget, so The Athletic looks at what the situation is now, with a year to go.

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What happened to Switzerland’s tournament budget?

In January, the Swiss government announced it would offer 4million Swiss Francs (£3.5m, $4.5m) to support the tournament. The…

Murat Yakin did look slightly surprised to be asked about his status as a sex symbol.

It was shortly after his Switzerland side had drawn with Scotland in their second group game at Euro 2024. In among all the questions about his team changes, tactical thinking and approach for the next game against tournament hosts Germany, it was slightly unusual.

But he’s a big hit on TikTok, apparently.

At a tournament where there have been some maverick touchline fashion choices, Yakin’s style is unfussy smart-casual: the sorts of clothes that aren’t immediately eye-catching but you can tell actually cost more than your car. He often wears a pair of large spectacles that, along with the streaks of grey in his swept-back hair, make him look a bit like Adam Driver playing Maurizio Gucci in the 2021 movie about the Italian clothing brand.

And for the thirstier corners of the internet, it clearly works.

When the question was asked, Yakin’s eyebrows rose towards the top of his forehead. Defender Manuel Akanji, sitting next to him, burst out laughing.

“I hope my wife isn’t listening to this,” said Yakin.

But it was probably a relief for Yakin to be fielding that sort of question, given what he had to deal with before the…

Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles FC have added Grasshopper Club Zurich to their growing network of clubs, buying a 90 per cent stake in the Swiss outfit from Hong Kong-based Champion Union.

The Chinese company, which is owned by Jenny Wang, the wife of Fosun International boss Guo Guangchang, has been trying to sell the team, who are better known outside Switzerland as Grasshoppers, for over a year.

The deal brings an end to the club’s partnership with Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers, who are owned Fosun, a sprawling Chinese conglomerate.

Injury cut short the loan spell of Wolves’ Nigel Lonwijk in Zurich late last year and teammate Theo Corbeanu is likely to return, too. Former player and Wolves loan manager Matt Jackson appears to be out of a job, too, as he has been replaced as president at Grasshoppers by LAFC chief operating and chief financial officer Stacy Johns.

For LAFC, this latest move means they now own Switzerland’s oldest and most successful team, have a stake in Austrian fourth-tier side FC Wacker Innsbruck and have a joint venture with Bayern Munich.

The latter, called Red & Gold Football, describes itself as an “integrated, unique global platform” for the “promotion of young talents and their responsible accompaniment into professional…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup gets under way in Australia and New Zealand on July 20, with the U.S. hoping to navigate an expanded 32-team tournament to become the first country to win football’s biggest prize three times in a row.

They are the favourites, but will the four-time winners actually pull off the ‘three-peat’? What of England, European champions but decimated by injuries to key players as they attempt to win the tournament for the first time? Will Germany bounce back from losing the final of the Euros to lift the game’s biggest prize?

How will the likes of France, Spain and Canada perform after their preparations have been disrupted by disputes with their federations over the past few months?

And can we expect any surprises from any of the eight countries — Haiti, Morocco, Panama, Philippines, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Vietnam and Zambia — making their World Cup debuts?

Our expert writers give their verdicts on what they think will happen over the next five weeks.

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Flo Lloyd-Hughes, women’s football reporter

Winner: Germany. This is a very open tournament and there are four or five teams that have a good chance of winning the title. Germany are often the masters of their own downfall, but given their disappointment at the Euros last summer and their…

Group A: New Zealand (FIFA world ranking: 22), Norway (12), Switzerland (21), Philippines (53)

While some World Cup host nations would simply be thrilled with automatic qualification, New Zealand will undoubtedly be a bit more ambitious with their aims. They are used to competing at this level — 2023 will be their fifth consecutive appearance in the tournament and sixth overall since it began in 1991.

However, New Zealand are yet to advance beyond the group stage, or even win a match, at the finals — and, if their start to 2023 is any indication, playing on home soil will need to play an outsized part in their quest for such advancement. To that end, unsurprisingly, their group games are all happening in New Zealand rather than in co-host Australia.

Since losing all three matches in the previous World Cup four years ago, New Zealand have undergone an evolution.

Long-time mainstay Abby Erceg retired (again, having done so once in 2017) from international football in January at age 33, although a trio of similarly veteran members (Ali Riley, Betsy Hassett and Annalie Longo, who all made their debuts between 2006 and 2008) are all involved, while Ria Percival tries to make up for over a year of lost action due to an ACL knee injury. Percival made the squad but whether she gets…

The 2023 Women’s World Cup is almost here. It is the ninth iteration of the tournament and the biggest yet as, for the first time, 32 teams will compete for the trophy.

That means a new format with more matches and more players, as well as some new rules that have not been in operation before.

Here’s a primer ahead of the biggest women’s football tournament in history.

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The basics

What is the Women’s World Cup?

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is an international tournament that pits the best national sides against one another every four years.

Where is it being held?

The tournament is being played in Australia and New Zealand.

It is the first Women’s World Cup to be hosted across two countries and the first World Cup (regardless of gender) to be hosted across two confederations — Australia are part of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and New Zealand are part of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC).

When is it?

The first two games of the tournament — New Zealand vs Norway and Australia vs Republic of Ireland — will be played on July 20.

The group stage will conclude with the final two games in Group H a fortnight later on August 3.

The knockout stage will begin on…

Switzerland has been chosen to host the 2025 Women’s Euros.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said the executive committee chose the Swiss bid over three other candidates after the maximum three rounds of voting. The other candidates were France, Poland and the expected favourite, a four-nation Nordic project with Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Denmark had initially worked on a solo bid for the tournament, but abandoned that idea in 2021 and began a collaboration with other Nordic countries.

Ukraine had also put themselves forward in 2021 but the subsequent invasion of Russia curtailed their potential plans.

But Switzerland has won the race to host the event.

England hosted the Euros in 2022 and were victorious on home soil. The Netherlands previously hosted the 2017 edition, which they won, with Sweden hosting in 2013 when Germany were victorious.

Germany, who extended head coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg’s contract until the end of the 2025 Euros earlier this week, are the competition’s most successful team, winning eight times and finishing as runners-up last year. They remarkably won six consecutive Euros between 2013 and 1995.

More to follow.

(Photo: Getty Images)