Women's football in South America has entered an exciting period. Colombia hosted the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2024™, with passionate sell-out crowds supporting the home team, and in three years, the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027™ will take place on the continent for the first time when it is hosted by Brazil.

To help the 10 member associations make the most of the great opportunity presented by these events, FIFA staged the FIFA Women's Football Regional workshop in Bogotá on the sidelines of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.

"The Women's World Cup in Brazil in 2027 is the biggest opportunity that every single member association in this region has to grow the women's game in their respective countries," FIFA Chief Women’s Football Officer Dame Sarai Bareman told the workshop in her opening address. "Women's football will explode in South America after this tournament and if we are not ready to receive that interest, we will fail the next generation who will be inspired by this tournament."

She emphasised that FIFA's ambitions to grow the game and achieve a target of 60 million women playing football by 2026 depended heavily on the member associations.

"[They] are the ones in the end who are, on a day-to-day basis, delivering on these objectives. So, this is a chance to, support them, hear from them, understand more intimately their challenges: what’s working well, what’s not and, it helps us, also, to adapt and adjust how we can support them," she later told Inside FIFA.

Bareman emphasised the importance for member associations to have a women's football strategy encompassing the whole ecosystem such as grassroots, development, participation and organising competitions at the youth level for girls to funnel through.

"You need to have coaches there ready to receive those girls, to train them. We need to have administrators in the game. You can do a lot of work on the pitch, but if you don’t have strong structures around the game or strong governance, often all the hard work on the pitch can go to waste. So, there is not really one key thing that everyone can do here," she said.

In opening the event, Ramón Jesurún, the President of the Colombian Football Association (FCF), spoke of the importance of national championships. “We need to consolidate local leagues and strengthen them so that the progress we are seeing from the national teams, also happens with club teams," he said.

One of FIFA's strategic objectives for the 2023-27 cycle is to increase playing opportunities for national teams and clubs. Frederico Nantes, CONMEBOL Director of Competitions and Operations, explained how CONMEBOL was following FIFA’s example by increasing the number of competitions for women, from 15 in the 2022-2024 cycle to 18 for the 2025-27 cycles - an increase of 27.3% in the number of games played and 16.6% in the number of players involved.

Member associations were also given a presentation about CONMEBOL's Evolución programme for the development and professionalisation of football, and another about the growth of women's football in Colombia.

The event also heard from Arthur Elias, coach of the Brazil women’s national team. “It’s really important for us to be able to develop the game as a whole, and sharing knowledge is always very beneficial,” said Elias, who led Brazil to the silver medal at the Olympic Football Tournament Paris 2024.

“It’s always crucial to have the opportunity to do this during the World Cup or other official FIFA competitions because people can also watch the matches and there’s already a positive atmosphere around women’s football. Colombia has been organising many tournaments, and this World Cup has been fantastic in terms of organisation. And on the pitch, we’ve seen some brilliant matches as well.”