Dates announced for FIFA 2020 Women's U-17 World Cup

In a exciting development, world football’s governing body of FIFA has announced the dates for the U-17 Women’s World Cup slated to be held in India, next year. The biennial event will be happen from November 2 to 21.

The dates for the tournament was one of several issues discussed in a meeting of the Organising Committee (OC) for FIFA Competitions that was held in Zurich on Friday. In a press release on the FIFA website,

"The OC confirmed that the competition will take place from 2 to 21 November 2020. The host cities will be confirmed in due course."

Tournament director Roma Khanna had told reporters on Friday that Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Ahmedabad, Goa and Navi Mumbai are the five venues that were inspected by the FIFA team for the tournament. She added that there are several other cities that have expressed interest.

The host cities for the tournament are yet to be approved with FIFA inspecting five potential venues thus far. Khanna said there will be a second round of assessment that will be done at the end of this year. 

India witnessed its first ever FIFA tournament back in 2017, when it won the bid to host the Men’s U-17 World Cup. After the success and grandeur of the Men’s U-17 World Cup, India won the bid to host the big-ticket event beating footballing heavyweight France in the race.

The Indian eves will be privy to get a direct entry into the tournament on the basis of India being a host country. The 2020 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup will feature a total of sixteen teams with the slot allocation to each of the confederations and the fixture details will be announced by FIFA on a later date.

The FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup will be the first FIFA competition for women in the country and the second overall to be held in India.