FIFA cancels U-17 Women’s World Cup, India to host 2022 edition

NEW DELHI: FIFA -- the governing body of football -- has decided to cancel the women’s youth tournaments for 2020, awarding the hosting rights of the 2022 editions to those nations. The official statement further informed that India will now host the upcoming 2022 edition.

The World Cup was originally to be played from November 2 and 21 in India, before being postponed to 2021 and was to be staged from February 17-March 7.

“Following due consideration of the situation and taking into account the input of all stakeholders, the FIFA-Confederations Covid-19 Working Group has recommended that the 2020 edition of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup (and FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup) be cancelled, and that the hosting rights for the 2022 editions be transferred to the countries that were initially planned to host the 2020 edition,” the AIFF said in the statement.

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“The Bureau of the Council has decided to appoint India as the host of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022,” it said.

AIFF said that it was “unfortunate” that the tournament would not take place in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel said the local organizing committee is ready to start afresh for hosting the 2022 edition.

“Following discussions with FIFA, we agreed that hosting the tournament without proper qualifications and without spectators led to more uncertainty, and it would have taken away from our objective of developing and promoting women’s football by hosting the competition in such circumstances. We now have a unique opportunity to start afresh and still have a considerable head start from the work that has been already put in,” he said in a press release.

“It is a difficult decision but the right one in the current circumstances. We’re now looking forward to hosting the tournament in 2022,” tournament director Roma Khanna added.

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