England are looking to defend their title at the 2025 Women’s Euros.
But conquering this year’s competition will be tricky right from the group stages.
The Lionesses will come up against Wales, who made history by qualifying for their first major tournament, and two other European heavyweights: France and the Netherlands.
Here is everything you need to know about Euro 2025.
Where is Euro 2025 being held?
This year’sWomen’s Euros is being held in Switzerland.
The competition kicks off on Wednesday 2 July, with the final on Sunday 27 July.
Matches will be held in eight venues across Switzerland from Zurich to Geneva, with the final game being played in Basel.
What teams have qualified?
A total of 16 teams have qualified for the competition.
Eight teams progressed directly from the qualifying league stage and seven teams qualified via the play-offs.
As hosts, Switzerland qualified automatically.
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2:03
Is it too hot for football?
The teams playing in the tournament are:
• England • Belgium • Denmark • Finland • France • Germany • Iceland • Italy • Netherlands • Norway • Poland • Portugal • Sweden • Spain • Switzerland • Wales
How much do the winners get?
This year, the total available prize money for the tournament stands at €41m (£34m) – more than doubling from the prize pot in 2022.
All competing sides receive a €1.8m (£1.5m) participation fee, with the remaining money going to the quarter-finalists, semi-finalists, runners-up and winners.
The maximum prize money achievable for the tournament winners, if they also win their three group stage matches, is €5.1m (£4.3m).
Image: England celebrate their victory at Women’s Euro 2022. Pic: Reuters
Who has (and hasn’t) made the England squad?
Some notable names will be missing from the England squad this year.
Goalkeeper Mary Earps announced in May that she is retiring from international football with immediate effect.
Within days, two other names, Fran Kirby and Millie Bright, also announced they would not be taking part in Euro 2025.
The departure of Bright, Earps and Kirby is a loss of three experienced players – between them they have 218 international appearances.
So who has manager Sarina Wiegman picked for the 23-person squad, and who has been snubbed?
Use our slider below to look through some of the key players, or see a list of the full England squad, here.
History-making Wales squad announced
The Welsh women’s national football team has qualified for an international tournament for the first time.
Their 23-player squad was announced by head coach Rhian Wilkinson at the summit of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) on Thursday morning.
Image: Rhian Wilkinson following the squad announcement at the summit of Yr Wyddfa. Pic: PA
Midfielder Angharad James captains the side, and is one of four players to have played over 100 times alongside fellow Wales veterans Jess Fishlock, Hayley Ladd and Sophie Ingle, who also made the cut.
Ingle hasn’t featured for club or country since suffering an ACL injury during a pre-season friendly for Chelsea last September.
The 33-year-old returned to full training at the beginning of the month and her inclusion comes as a significant boost ahead of Wales’ first major tournament.
Fishlock, Wales’ record appearance holder and goalscorer, will hope to add to her 47 international goals as she leads the line.
The side beat the Republic of Ireland 2-1 in a play-off match to secure their spot in the Euros.
Image: Wales have qualified for an international tournament for the first time. Pic: Reuters
Wales head coach Rhian Wilkinson said after the match: “This team found a way. They never broke for each other, they stayed strong. I’ve never been prouder of a team.
“This team stands on the shoulders of giants [the pioneering female footballers] who came before, and now they’ve proven how good they are.”
Similarly to the World Cup, teams in the Euros are split into four groups.
The top two teams in each group will progress to the knockout stage, where games will be decided by extra-time and penalties if needed.
The knockout stage pits the winners of the group against the runners-up, meaning Germany, Poland, Denmark or Sweden could lie in wait for England and Wales in the last eight.
Group A: Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Finland
Group B: Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Italy
Group C: Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden
Group D: France, England, Wales, Netherlands
When are England and Wales playing?
The Lionesses start their bid for the Euros title on 5 July when they take on France. The game will take place in Zurich at 8pm UK time.
Wales kick off their campaign earlier the same day, against the Netherlands. That game starts at 5pm UK time in Lucerne.
The two nations will be the last teams in Group D to face each other.
Their showdown will be held in the city of St Gallen, on Sunday 13 July. Kick-off is at 8pm UK time.
Can England win the Euros again?
The Lionesses lifted the Euros trophy in front of a home crowd in 2022, after beating Germany 2-1.
Chloe Kelly delivered the deciding goal in extra time, but can the team do it all again?
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Can England win the Euros again?
Lucy Bronze admitted to Sky News that the team faces “one of the hardest” groups going into the tournament, but added: “We know on any given day, when we play at our best we can beat any team in the world.”
The right-back said: “We have got one of the most talented squads going into the Euros… I wouldn’t want to be a defender on the other team going against some of our players.
“We know it is going to be difficult, there are maybe a handful of teams that are capable of winning it, and we are definitely one of them.”
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‘Handful of teams could win the Euros – we’re one’
After naming her squad in May, Weigman told Sky News sports correspondent Rob Harris: “This group is a very well-balanced mix of players with multiple tournaments on their CVs and also those that will make their tournament debuts.
“I am excited to see what we are capable of this summer.”
How to watch the Euros 2025
Eevery single match of the Women’s Euros will be shown across the BBC and ITV, with the two broadcasters showing half of the 31 matches each, except the final, which will be shown on both channels.
Every match will also be screened live at three venues across London and Birmingham.
TOCA Social at The O2 and Westfield White City in London and The Bullring in Birmingham is hosting watch parties for fans hoping to catch all the action.
The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.
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0:49
European leaders sit down with Trump for talks
The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.
Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russiawould have a problem with it.
Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putinhad agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.
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0:50
Trump: No US troops on ground in Ukraine
Russia gives two fingers to the president
And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.
“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.
Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.
It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.
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4:02
Europe ‘undermining’ Ukraine talks
The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.
Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.
It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.
NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.
European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”
The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.
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5:57
Sky’s Mark Stone takes you inside Zelenskyy-Trump 2.0
Would Trump threaten force?
The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.
The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iranisn’t a nuclear power.
Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.
Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.
A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.
Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.
He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.
Image: Pic: Truth Social
That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.
The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.
At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.
Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.
Image: Pics: AP
Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.
Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.
Who are FARC, and are they still active?
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.
It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.
It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.
According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.
Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.
It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.
The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.
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