FIFA President Gianni Infantino has called the inaugural FIFA Women’s Champions Cup™ “an important step” after watching Arsenal Women FC defeat SC Corinthians in a “crazy” final to become the first winners of the competition. Mr Infantino was among the fans who watched the historic game at the Arsenal Stadium in London, England, as the maiden showpiece event of the new tournament played out in dramatic fashion with Arsenal overcoming their Brazilian opponents 3-2 after extra-time. “A crazy, crazy final for the first-ever FIFA Women’s Champions Cup. We now have the very first world champions, so congratulations to Arsenal Women for winning this first, historic trophy. Well deserved, but it was a tough, tough game. Congratulations to Corinthians for reaching the final and playing such a great game. It was really thrilling,” said the FIFA President shortly after the final whistle. “It’s a new era for women’s club football, and we started in style.”

The final marked the climax of the game-changing tournament, which was introduced following FIFA Council approval last April with the aim of giving women’s club teams the opportunity to compete on the global stage. It is played annually between editions of the FIFA Women’s Club World Cup™, which will be staged for the first time in 2028 and held every four years.

Involving the women’s club champions of each confederation, the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup 2026™ kicked off in October last year as Chinese club Wuhan Jiangda WFC, the AFC Women’s Champions League title holders, defeated Auckland United FC of New Zealand, the winners of the 2025 OFC Women’s Champions League.

Morocco’s African champions ASFAR then defeated Wuhan to progress to the final stage, which was given a global audience thanks to a landmark broadcast deal that ensured the games played in London were available to fans around the world through a mix of free-to-view global streaming and top-tier local broadcasters. ASFAR were then beaten by European champions Arsenal in the semi-finals while Corinthians – the South American champions – saw off their North American counterparts, Gotham FC of the United States, in the other last-four tie.

“It’s a very important step in not just the development, but the boosting of women’s football. We have shown and we’ve seen that women’s football at club level is growing everywhere in the world as well,” said Mr Infantino, who also congratulated Gotham FC and ASFAR after the American side won the bronze medal in a play-off match between the beaten semi-finalists earlier in the day. “We know national team football is already a success story, and club football is coming up everywhere. We have seen in terms of participation of countries and of players from all over the world, this has been growing a lot in recent years. We have more and more (national) teams. We have almost 200 teams in the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s Ranking – 198 to be precise. Our objective is to be at 211, of course, but we have come quite a long way from how it was only a decade ago when we were at 120 or 130 teams.

“So a lot is happening, a lot is growing, and of course club football is very very important. It’s where everything happens, so we need to boost it. We need to grow it and we need to do that everywhere in the world. I think this is crucial.”

When asked about the future of the women’s game, Mr Infantino replied: “We are very optimistic about it. We’ve seen some incredible figures already at the last FIFA Women’s World Cup™. We had almost two million people in the stadiums with two billion people engaging with the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The next one will be in Brazil in 2027, it will be a huge, huge success. The demands from broadcasters, sponsors and so on are unprecedented already,” he said.

“The numbers are going in the right direction, the spectacle on the pitch is getting better and better, more and more emotional. Technically, physically, emotionally, all the ingredients are there, and it’s just going to grow more and more.”