AFC Women’s Football Committee recommends women’s club competition
Thursday, April 19, 2018

Amman: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Football Committee agreed today on the importance of the introduction of a women’s football club competition in Asia.




The Committee met ahead of the final of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Jordan 2018 in the capital Amman.

A pilot phase will precede the introduction the new AFC women’s club competition and the administration will study the format and timing of this.

The AFC Technical Division submitted views on the introduction of a women’s club competition. It was concluded that a good quality club competition will be vital technically in closing the gap between the top teams and the next tier of Member Associations, a key objective for the AFC’s women’s football development strategy.

The format and timing of the Women’s Olympic Asian Qualifiers was also reviewed by the Committee, based on survey feedback received from the Member Associations. Twenty-eight AFC Member Associations have entered the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Tokyo 2020 competition. The first round of qualifiers will involve five groups comprising four teams and second round will involve three groups of four teams. Both will be played in a centralised format.

After discussion on the merits of centralised and home-and-away fixtures, the Committee agreed to centralised groups, with the play-off matches to be played on a home-and-away basis across the top two teams of each group. The AFC Competitions Division was mandated to find the most suitable dates for the qualifiers.

The Committee approved Thailand as the host of the AFC Women’s Under-19 and Under-16 Championship 2019 finals, which will take place on October 27-November 9 and September 15-28, 2019, respectively.

There will be 27 Member Associations taking part in the AFC Women’s U-19 Championship qualifiers and 30 teams will compete in the Women’s Under-16 qualifiers.

As part of the AFC Referees Department update, the Committee was informed that six women’s referees and 12 assistant referees from the AFC have been shortlisted for the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019.

The Committee also recommended a safeguarding policy for the protection of all people should be introduced by the AFC and the guidelines should be in line with the latest industry standards.