Switzerland named hosts for women's Euro 2025

???? Congratulations to Switzerland - hosts of the 2025 UEFA Women’s EURO ??

See you in 2?0?2?5? ??#WEURO2025 | @sfv_asf pic.twitter.com/rshdWQXaGQ
— Women's Finalissima (@WEURO) April 4, 2023

Switzerland will host the 2025 women's European Championship, European soccer's governing body UEFA said on Tuesday, beating out three other bids to stage the 16-team event.

Switzerland last hosted a major soccer tournament in 2008, staging that year's edition of the men's Euros along with neighbours Austria.

"This is a historic day for Switzerland, the SFA and women's football," Swiss FA president Dominique Blanc said in a statement.

"This major step will shape the development of women's football at all levels."

The Swiss FA said the first visits to the venues with UEFA were planned for April and May.

"The tournament will take place over four weeks in June and July 2025 at the planned venues of Basel, Bern, Geneva, Zurich, St. Gallen, Sion, Lucerne and Thun," the Swiss FA said.

"The existing infrastructure will be used and the construction of additional stadiums, hotels or training grounds is not necessary according to the current state of knowledge."

UEFA received four bids to host the tournament, from Switzerland, France and Poland as well as a joint bid from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The Nordic bid provided the strongest competition to Switzerland, making it to the UEFA Executive Committee's final round of voting, where it received four votes to Switzerland's nine.

"We believe we submitted a good application with a clear plan on how to create the best Euros ever," Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klaveness said.

"We always knew that the competition would be tough, and we can only congratulate Switzerland who came away with the victory."

Ukraine had also expressed interest in hosting the event before the Russian invasion.The tournament was held in England in 2022, where the hosts won the title after beating Germany in the final at Wembley Stadium.

Last year's tournament, which was postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had a projected global cumulative live viewership of 365 million, while a record crowd of 87,192 attended the final at Wembley.

"It'll always be hard to top a home Euros in front of the packed-out Wembley Stadium, obviously winning it as well, but I think looking forward to the future ... there's still going to be so many fans and so many people watching from back home," England forward Lauren Hemp said.

Germany are the most successful team in the competition, having won the title eight times.