| Tourney Name: | CONCACAF W Gold Cup qualification |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Size: | 275 |
| Num Teams: | 34 |
| Confederations: | 1 |
| Matches: | 86 |
| Goals: | 353 |
| Top Scorer: | Brenda Cerén Melchie Dumornay (8 goals each) |
| Nextseason: | 2028 |
The 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup qualification competition, also known as the Road to CONCACAF W Gold Cup, was a women's football tournament that was contested by 34 of the senior women's national teams of the member associations of CONCACAF. The competition decided six of the twelve participating teams of the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup, the inaugural edition of the W Gold Cup.
The league stage of the qualifying was played from September 20 to December 5, 2023, with the three League A group winners qualifying for the final tournament. Three additional teams qualified via the play-off round, contested on February 17, 2024, by the League A group runners-up and the League B group winners. These six teams joined the two CONCACAF teams qualified for the Olympics and four guests at the W Gold Cup, to be contested from February 20 to March 10, 2024.[1] [2]
On December 10, 2020, the CONCACAF Council approved the structure and calendar of the competition. The qualification competition, known as the "Road to Concacaf W Gold Cup", began with the group stage, featuring 34 women's national teams of CONCACAF split into three leagues (A, B and C). Each league featured three groups, containing three teams each in League A, and four teams each in Leagues B and C. The teams in each group played against each other home-and-away in a double round-robin format. The top three teams in League A qualified directly for the W Gold Cup. The three group runners-up of League A and the three League B group winners participated in a play-off on February 17, 2024, to compete for the final three spots at the W Gold Cup. The play-offs were originally planned to take place in March 2024,[2] but were moved to February to accommodate the W Gold Cup final tournament also being moved (from June to February and March 2024).[3] The two CONCACAF women's national teams that qualify for the Summer Olympics in 2024 (the United States and Canada) received a bye directly to the W Gold Cup, skipping qualification.[2]
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). The rankings of teams in each group were determined as follows (regulations Articles 12.3):[4] If two or more teams were equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings were determined as follows:
Of the 41 CONCACAF member associations, 34 entered into the qualification competition, while the two CONCACAF teams that qualified for the Summer Olympics (the United States and Canada) advanced directly to the final competition.
On April 27, 2023, CONCACAF announced 33 countries had entered into the qualifying competition (including Jamaica, the loser of the CONCACAF Olympic play-off).[5] The teams were split into leagues and pots based on the CONCACAF Women's Ranking of March 2023,[6] with League A containing nine teams and Leagues B and C containing twelve teams. On May 11, the CONCACAF Council approved the late entries of Bonaire, Cuba and Saint Lucia into the competition. To preserve the integrity of the leagues, these teams were placed in League C regardless of their ranking, though the pots were updated based on the ranking of the new teams. At the same time, the British Virgin Islands and Sint Maarten (originally in League C, pot 3) were confirmed to have withdrawn from the competition, bringing the total number of qualifying entrants to 34, and the number of teams in League C to thirteen. To accommodate the newly added teams, League C was expanded from three groups of four teams to one group of four teams (Group A) and three groups of three teams (Groups B, C and D).[7]
The draw for the group stage took place on May 17, 2023, 19:00 EDT, in Miami, Florida, United States.[5] Teams were split into three pots of three teams in League A, four pots of three teams in League B, and three pots of four teams and one pot of one team in League C. The pots were drawn from sequentially, with drawn teams assigned to groups in ascending order.
| Team | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 7,699 | 1 | ||
| 5,231 | 2 |
|
|
|
| Team | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | 34 | ||
| 0 | 38 | ||
| 0 | 39 | ||
| 0 | 40 | ||
| 0 | 41 |
Notes
The fixtures for the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup qualification competition were announced by CONCACAF on July 5, 2023.[8]
| Stage | Round | FIFA match window[9] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| League stage | Matchday 1 | September 20–26, 2023 | |
| Matchday 2 | |||
| Matchday 3 | October 25–31, 2023 | ||
| Matchday 4 | |||
| Matchday 5 | November 29 – December 5, 2023 | ||
| Matchday 6 | |||
| Play-offs | Play-off | February 17, 2024 |
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The three group runners-up of League A and the three group winners of League B advanced to the play-offs (also known as the prelims). The six teams were divided into three pairings based on the December 2023 CONCACAF Women's Ranking. The single-leg matches took place at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, United States on February 17, 2024, immediately prior to the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup. The three winners qualified for the final tournament's group stage.[3]
| + Qualified teams | |||
| Team | Qualification | CONCACAF Ranking[10] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qualification League A Group C runners-up | 7 | ||
| Qualification League B Group B winners | 9 | ||
| Qualification League B Group A winners | 11 | ||
| Qualification League B Group C winners | 12 | ||
| Qualification League A Group B runners-up | 15 | ||
| Qualification League A Group A runners-up | 17 |
|}
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The following twelve teams qualified for the final tournament.
Notes