The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ is here! The biggest tournament in the history of the women’s game will kick off today Australia and New Zealand. Hublot will be there as Official Timekeeper, keeping time at every one of the tournament’s 64 fixtures, from the first group stage game at Eden Park in Auckland between New Zealand and Norway on 20 July, to the final in Sydney on 20 August. Every match will run to Hublot time, captured by the iconic Big Bang-shaped fourth official boards, LED boards, and the Hublot Big Bang e Gen 3, the watchmaker’s luxury smartwatch devoted to the world’s greatest game, on the wrists of all of the competition’s Official Referees. “Hublot loves football!”

The women’s game is going from strength to strength and Hublot – always first, different, unique – is proud to be supporting its development and taking its story of dedication, excellence and fair play to the world, inspiring a new generation of fans and players. This will be the third time the Swiss fine watchmaker has timed the FIFA Women’s World Cup™, having served as Official Timekeeper at the 2015 and 2019 tournaments in Canada and France respectively. Since then, Hublot has deepened its commitment to growing the women’s game by serving as Official Timekeeper to the UEFA European Women’s Championship™ and UEFA Women’s Champions League™.

At this year’s tournament, there will be 107 match officials (33 referees, 55 assistant referees and 19 video match officials), 94 of whom are women. Each of them will be equipped with Hublot’s Big Bang e, a high-powered luxury smartwatch that fuses the brand’s flagship Big Bang watch design with cutting-edge materials and the latest connected technology. The edition designed exclusively for officials features a number of special functions created to help them during the course of a game, such as monitoring yellow cards and added time at the end of the game. What’s more, the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ app will be available for download to all owners of the Big Bang e Gen 3 through the Google Play store, bringing all the action of the game to the wrist. The fan edition keeps track of every match with score updates delivered straight to the wrist in real time.

A number of Hublot Friends of the Brand will be taking part in the tournament, including Norway’s Ada Hegerberg, the first winner of the women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018; Spain’s double Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas; and Alex Morgan, who will take to the field in Australia and New Zealand as a member of the USA team, winners of the previous two editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup™.

One of the officials wearing the Hublot Big Bang e connected watch will be French referee and Hublot Friend of the Brand Stéphanie Frappart, who has set numerous firsts during her illustrious career. Last year, she became the first woman to referee a men’s World Cup match at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™.

Beyond this summer’s tournament, Hublot is now recognised as the first name in elite football timekeeping. The Swiss fine watchmaker first entered the sport in 2006 as sponsor to the Swiss national team and has been growing its involvement in it ever since. Today, Hublot is the official timekeeper of FIFA and UEFA’s flagship men’s events, too, including the FIFA World Cup™ and the UEFA European Championship™. Hublot also times the men’s UEFA Champions League™ and the English Premier League™, the most followed football league in the world.

Many of the world’s most celebrated footballers and football personalities are Hublot ambassadors, including the great, late Pelé, Kylian Mbappé and Jose Mourinho. Hublot also works with some of the biggest clubs in the history of the game, including Juventus in Italy and Chelsea in England.

Hublot is a Swiss watch manufacturer founded in 1980 and based in Nyon. For its first-ever timepiece, this fundamentally disruptive company combined gold with a rubber strap in a case with a design inspired by a ship’s porthole (“hublot” in French). Thus, the “Art of Fusion” was born, blending tradition, innovation, craftsmanship, worlds and talents. It became the brand’s aesthetic and technical signature.

This identity was strengthened in 2005 with the Big Bang, which attested to an unrivalled know-how in terms of complications, manufacture movements and state-of-the-art materials. Carbon, titanium, ceramic and sapphire have been developed on this model to technical extremes.

This ground-breaking, high-quality approach to watchmaking is summed up in its philosophy, “Be First, Unique and Different.” It gradually led to other collections with innovative designs: Classic Fusion, Spirit of Big Bang, Square Bang and Manufacture Pieces. These draw on high levels of craftsmanship, both in terms of the materials so dear to Hublot (such as Magic Gold, brightly-coloured ceramics and sapphires) and its manufacture movements (Unico chronograph, Meca-10 and large complications such as the Tourbillon, the Cathedral Minute Repeater and the specific Manufacture Pieces movements).

Hublot’s world extends to powerful partnerships, including football. “Hublot Loves Football” has become the slogan at the world’s biggest sporting events (such as the FIFA World Cup™, Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA EURO™) and through its ambassadors. This love of football continues in art, design, music, sport, fine dining and sailing.

Lastly, Hublot’s implication in joint environmental projects with SORAI and Polar Pod reflects its concern for the issues of the day. Almost 125 boutiques around the world share Hublot’s fervour and values, alongside the Hublot.com e-commerce.