The final round of the second Women's Champions Cup, an intercontinental competition for club teams, will be played at Inter Miami's Nu Stadium in late January, FIFA announced Sunday.
No U.S. women's club is set to play. Mexico's Club America will represent CONCACAF after defeating the Washington Spirit in the confederation's W Champions Cup in May.
Spanish powerhouse Barcelona also has qualified for the four-team final round as the representative for UEFA. The winner of October's Copa Libertadores Femenina will qualify for CONMEBOL.
The Champions Cup was created to give women’s professional club teams greater opportunities for global competition, while building on the success of the game's marquee national team tournament, the Women’s World Cup.
“You’re just seeing a lot more attention and growth to the sport, and I think that’s really what we’re trying to do, is not just focus on national teams, but now help and grow and develop and stimulate the players' week-in and week-out environment, and that’s again through minimum standards. It’s through financial investment. It’s through creating competitions,” FIFA Chief Football Officer Jill Ellis said.
Ellis, former coach of the U.S. women's national team, told The Associated Press that Nu Stadium was chosen because it is a soccer-specific venue and a suitable size (26,700) for the competition.
FIFA previously announced it was targeting the Miami area, which has demonstrated community support for soccer through a variety of competitions in recent years, Ellis said. The time zone and mild winter temperatures also were considered, as well as the fact that the United States has a strong domestic pro league, the National Women's Soccer League.
In addition to Club America, Barcelona and the CONMEBOL representative, teams from Africa, Asia and Oceania will compete for the fourth spot in Miami.
Auckland United FC, which won the OFC Champions League, will face AFC Champions League winners Naegohyang Women’s FC in October. The winner of that match will advance to face Africa’s representative from the CAF Women’s Champions League tournament in December.
Arsenal won the inaugural Women’s Champions Cup with a 3-2 victory over Brazil’s Corinthians in February. Arsenal earned $2.3 million for winning the intercontinental tournament. Corinthians took home $1 million as the runner-up.
The Champions Cup also builds on the growing number of regional club competitions, led by the success of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
“Part of building out a club competition is also with that will come club minimum standards,” Ellis said. “We’re working with the confederations now to make sure that there are minimum standards for you to be able to compete. So when you try and create a competition, it’s not just creating a competition that brings global recognition to clubs and helps promote players, etc. There’s also the incentive of stimulating growth in leagues and in confederations that obviously host the leagues.”
FIFA also is introducing a 16-team Women’s Club World Cup, which will launch in 2028 and be played every four years. The new Champions Cup will be held every year, except years when the Club World Cup takes place.
Ellis said when FIFA was considering the Champions Cup, there were only two confederations that had competitions for a confederation winner: UEFA and CONMEBOL.
“Once we announced this competition, we’ve seen now we have all six of our confederations that have a competition,” she said. “So sometimes when you build a competition, it actually drives investment in people wanting to participate and people wanting to invest in club football.”
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE - Arsenal's team captains Kin Little, left, and Leah Williamson, right, lift the trophy after winning the Women's Champions Cup final soccer match between Arsenal FC and SC Corinthians in London, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
Russia's first wartime parliamentary election was due to end Sunday, virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin's policies and all but certain to cement the Kremlin’s dominance. The last day of the election came as Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds that were launched toward Moscow.
The vote began Friday, and authorities encouraged online balloting to boost turnout among its 111 million eligible voters.
For the first time, the election included residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but still doesn’t fully control. Voting is also taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
Authorities in Kyiv denounced the voting in the Russian-held areas as illegal and urged foreign governments not to recognize the result. The European Union on Friday called the action a “blatant violation of international law.”
The Kremlin wants the parliamentary election — the first since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — to showcase popular support for the war and legitimize its action. It has sought to avoid political risks by stamping out any dissent.
A massive state media campaign and tight control over the election in the absence of genuine opposition all but assure the Kremlin will keep tight control of Russian politics amid mounting economic costs and increasing Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside the country.
Voters cast two separate ballots, filling half of the Duma’s 450 seats by selecting political parties listed on the ballot. The rest are contested in single-seat constituencies, with voters choosing individual candidates.
Preliminary results are expected within hours of voting ending in the country’s west.
The main Kremlin party, United Russia, is widely expected to retain its overwhelming control of the lower house, the State Duma. Several smaller parties of the “systemic opposition” that vote in sync with Putin's views on all key issues also are expected to maintain their presence.
The liberal Yabloko party, the only registered political entity that dared to publicly criticize the war, was removed from the ballot last month by Russia’s Supreme Court, and only has a few dozen candidates in the single-constituency races. Additionally, some anti-war politicians were imprisoned or forced to flee abroad ahead of the campaign.
Yabloko and the Communist Party, which has criticized some aspects of government policy but carefully avoided any criticism of Putin, said many of their observers were turned away from polling stations.
Russia didn’t invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, with the Russian Foreign Ministry accusing the body of “double standards” for its criticism of Russia. OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Pere Joan Pons said that the decision was a breach of Russia’s commitments as a member state of the organization.
Yabloko reported that one of its observers lost consciousness while being arrested by police at a St. Petersburg polling station on Saturday, after officials accused him of trying to “disrupt the elections” and called police.
The parties reported violations including sealed ballot boxes being opened, doors to polling stations not being secured overnight, and a refusal to issue paper ballots. The claims could not be independently verified.
At one polling station in the Russian-held part of the Donetsk region, voters dropped their ballots in a box as an armed Russian soldier stood nearby and watched.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission, said Sunday that the electronic voting system in Moscow was targeted by cyberattacks. She blamed one of the “systemic parties” — meaning one of those taking part in the vote, without specifying which one.
SotaVision, an independent Russian news outlet, said Sunday that voters were reporting glitches in the electronic registry systems at polling stations across Moscow. People were not issued paper ballots and instead were asked to vote via an electronic terminal, the outlet said on Telegram.
Leonid Volkov, a close associate of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, suggested the supposed breakdown of the system used to issue paper ballots in Moscow may have been deliberate, aimed at pushing voters toward electronic voting.
“Demand a paper ballot!” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Lines formed outside polling stations as many voters refused to vote electronically.
Having urged supporters to spoil party-list ballots, Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov cast a ballot in St. Petersburg on Sunday, covered in bright green writing declaring “For freedom," “For peace,” and “Yabloko.”
Russia’s exiled opposition, including the widow of Alexei Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, called on anti-war Russians to cast their votes at noon on Sunday.
Thousands of Russians living in Armenia took part in the vote, lining up outside the Russian Embassy in the capital, Yerevan. Some of them joined the “Noon for a Peaceful Russia” anti-war demonstration, holding anti-war and anti-Putin posters.
Mark Podberezin, a journalist, said members of the election commission in Yerevan made remarks that felt like “outright intimidation.” He said he had heard comments "along the lines of, ‘You’ll have to return to Russia sooner or later, keep that in mind.’”
Lidiya Klimenko said she did not think her vote would have any real impact. The most useful thing to do, she said, was “to see other people who are also against the war, to be together in a shared cause.”
In Germany, voters cast their ballots at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. Andrei Pivovarov, a dissident and former head of the Open Russia group, addressed a protest gathered outside the building.
The election's last day came against a backdrop of a major wave of Ukrainian attacks. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across Russia, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.
Two people were killed and 20 wounded across the wider Moscow region, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.
The election follows a summer of Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on oil refineries that triggered a widespread fuel crisis. Warehouses belonging to online retailers Wildberries and Ozon also were attacked. Those attacks have exacerbated economic problems and brought the war home for millions.
A voter looks through a ballot during the parliamentary election in Moscow, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian political activist Andrei Pivovarov speaks during a protest in front of Russian embassy as people cast their vote for the Russian parliament election in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Russian citizens line up outside the Russian Embassy to join an anti-war demonstration to protest the ruling United Russia party and Moscow's ongoing invasion of Ukraine in Yerevan, Armenia, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026, during the final day of Russia's parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Anthony Pizzoferrato)
Yabloko party leader Nikolai Rybakov casts a ballot with a writing in Russian reading "For freedom" during the parliamentary election in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)
A voter casts a ballot in the parliamentary election in Moscow, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)
