Fifa Women's World Cup draw: Everything you need to know

The Football Ferns will have plenty to celebrate when they play in next year's world cup on home soil. Photo / Photosport

Football stars and dignitaries are set to flock to Auckland's Aotea Centre for tonight's glitzy 2023 Fifa Women's World Cup draw.

Held at 7.30pm, the ceremony will be when the Football Ferns - and the 28 other teams who have already qualified for the 32-team tournament - find out who will be their group opponents.

As co-hosts, New Zealand (world No 22) have the luxury of being seeded, along with Australia (13).

That's a considerable bonus as it places them in the so-called pot one, alongside the world's top-six ranked nations, and means the Ferns won't have to clash with these heavyweights during the group stages.

With 29 matches set to be played in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington and Dunedin, the draw means fans will know who they'll get to see playing on local shores.

Here's everything you need to know about the draw.

Why is it in Auckland?

New Zealand is actually co-hosting next year's tournament with Australia.

Unfortunately for us, that means Australia will hold the tournament's final at Sydney's Accor Stadium on August 20.

But in exchange, New Zealand gets the opening match at Eden Park on July 20, a pre-world cup qualifying tournament and tonight's draw.

Deputy PM Grant Robertson and Fifa Secretary General Fatma Samoura at an announcement of he date and location for tonight's Women's World Cup draw. Photo / File

All games for groups A, C, E and G will be held entirely within New Zealand (while groups B, D, F and H matches will be in Australia), meaning fans wanting to see a particular nation play here will need to hope they land in one of these groups.

Who has qualified?

So far 29 teams have qualified, while three more teams will qualify next February when they play off against 10 teams in a pre-World Cup tournament in New Zealand to secure the final places.

These qualified teams have also been divided into four pots according to their rankings.

POT 1: Australia (World No.13), New Zealand (22), United States (1), Sweden (2), Germany (3), England (4), France (5), Spain (6).

POT 2: Canada (7), Netherlands (8), Brazil (9), Japan (11), Norway (12), Italy (14), China (15), South Korea (17).

POT 3: Denmark (18), Switzerland (21), Ireland (24), Colombia (27), Argentina (29), Vietnam (34), Costa Rica (37), Jamaica (43).

POT 4: Nigeria (45), Philippines (53), South Africa (54), Morocco (76), Zambia (81), three play-off winners.

How will the draw work?

Along with the pots, there are eight four-team groups.

The teams in each of these groups will then play each other during the round-robin, "group phase" of the tournament before the top teams advance through to the playoff finals.

New Zealand and Australia will be drawn into groups A and B.

The other top six nations will then be drawn into one of the other groups from C through to G.

That means the top nations won't play each other in the group stage.

Tonight's draw will then continue to work through the rest of the teams so that each group should have one team from each pot within it.

Who is in town for the draw?

Fifa has called it a line-up of former stars to help out as "assistants" and "conductors" for the draw.

They include ex-Football Fern Maia Jackman, US two-time Women's World Cup champion Carli Lloyd, former England and Arsenal striker Ian Wright and 2002 Men's World Cup winner Gilberto Silva, of Brazil.

Kiwi snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott will also be on hand to help.

Alongside the stars will be about 800 guests at the Aotea Centre, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the Fifa President and Secretary General, Australian Federal Minister for Sport Anika Wells and representatives from all of the qualified teams.

The Fifa Council convenes on Saturday morning in Auckland, with the top brass from all six confederations.

So what's a good outcome for the Ferns?

Herald reporter Michael Burgess put that question to Ferns coach Jitka Klimkova, who didn't bite, saying she would only focus on what she could control.

But Burgess said arguably the most difficult scenario would see the Ferns facing Olympic champions Canada (ranked seventh), Denmark (18) and top African qualifier Nigeria (45).

A more inviting option might be South Korea (10), Jamaica (43) and tournament debutants Morocco (76).