Football
FIFA earmarks five venues for Women's U-17 World Cup
Kolkata, which hosted the grand finale of the Men’s U-17 World Cup was amongst the top picks alongside Ahmedabad, Goa, Navi Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar.
Come 2020, India is all set to be the centre stage for footballing action once again as it gears up to host the Women’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.
On the roadmap to the biennial event, FIFA, the world governing body for football, has inspected five cities which are likely to host matches of the U-17 Women's World Cup, to be held in India next year. Kolkata, which hosted the grand finale of the Men’s U-17 World Cup was amongst the top picks alongside Ahmedabad, Goa, Navi Mumbai and Bhubaneshwar.
Speaking on the sideline of a Press conference, tournament director Roma Khanna said,
”As of now we have visited and inspected five host cities that include Kolkata, Bhuvaneshwar, Ahmedabad, Goa and Navi Mumbai. These were the cities that we had inspected (however) there is a lot of interest from other cities as well.”
According to Khanna, a second round of inspection is slated to take place by the end of the year to put the proposed plans in action. After the final inspection, at which point the venues have to be fully compliant, they will receive full ratification by FIFA and be confirmed as the Host City for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup India 2020.
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.
