AFC cancels Women's U17 and U20 championships; Asian Cup 2022 qualifiers rescheduled

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee on Monday has approved the AFC Women’s Football Committee’s recommendation to cancel the AFC Women's U17 Asian Cup Indonesia 2022 and the AFC U20 Women’s Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022.

AFC cancels U17 and U20 tournaments

In an update on their website, the-afc.com, they wrote "The AFC Executive Committee acknowledged the importance to prioritise the health and safety of all stakeholders, in particular, the Continent’s youth players against the backdrop of the ongoing uncertainty and challenges caused by the current pandemic. It was also decided that the same hosts will stage the next editions of both competitions in 2024."

The governing body for football in Asia also decided to reschedule the qualifying tournament of the Women's Asian Cup 2022 scheduled to take place in India due to the COVID-19 pandemic saying, "In preparation for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup India 2022, the AFC Executive Committee also decided to provide greater flexibility in finalising the dates for the Qualifiers, which is currently scheduled for September 13 to 25, 2021, taking into consideration the challenges that may arise from the availability of hosts, team travel arrangements, quarantine and medical measures imposed by several nations."

Response to host nations wanting to participate in qualifiers 

Many of the host nations had requested to participate in the qualifiers to gain international exposure, technical preparation, and hosting experience despite receiving an automatic spot in the Finals saying the executive committee took a decision regarding this as well saying "The AFC Executive Committee also noted the preference of host Member Associations to gain valuable international exposure, technical preparation, and hosting experience by participating in the qualifying competitions despite receiving an automatic spot in the Finals."

They further added that "In light of this, and to maintain fairness of the qualifying competitions, the AFC Executive Committee agreed to allow host Member Associations to participate in the Qualifiers, which will be considered as friendly matches and have no bearing when calculating the group rankings and best-positioned teams among all the groups in the respective Qualifiers"

On the domestic front, the AFC Executive committee has approved the rescheduling of all knockout stage matches of the AFC Cup 2021 and AFC Champions League 2021 (from the quarter-finals onwards) from its current home and away format to single-leg ties.

(Image Credits: the-afc.com/Official AFC Website)