More teams, more matches, more opportunity. AFC revamps its women’s national team competition structures

September 13 – The AFC has released a set of reforms covering its women’s national team competitions that revamp the qualification pathways to their finals and World Cups.

The new competition structures, that include national team youth competitions, are aimed at “increasing and creating” an equal number of match opportunities for teams over each four-year cycle and improve the competitive balance.

They see the creation of a new standalone World Cup qualification competition as well as an increase in frequency and teams for U17 and U20 finals.

The AFC said that the reforms will better use the international match calendar to benefit player release and welfare, as well as allow nations to build up their hosting capacity and local fan base for their women’s teams.

AFC Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers
Qualification will now take place over two rounds, both to be played in a single round-robin, centralised format. This replaces the current single-round format, which also grants automatic qualification to the Finals for the top three finishers of the previous edition.

Round 1 will feature participating teams ranked ninth and below in the FIFA Women’s World Ranking. The AFC aims to draw teams into eight groups of three or four, with the top 16 teams progressing to Round 2.

They will be joined by the top eight FIFA-ranked sides and the 24 teams will be divided into six groups of four teams.

The winner of each group and the five best second-placed teams – a total of 11 teams – will advance to the finals, where they will be joined by the host nations.

The new qualifying format will begin with the 2029 edition in Uzbekistan.

FIFA Women’s World Cup Qualifiers 
For the first time in Asia Women’s World Cup Qualifiers will be a standalone competition.

Qualification will take place over three rounds, starting with the bottom-ranked teams in Round 1. Teams will be grouped to compete in a single round-robin, centralised league format – the number of…

Source link : https://www.insideworldfootball.com/2024/09/13/teams-matches-opportunity-afc-revamps-womens-national-team-competition-structures/

Author : Paul Nicholson

Publish date : 2024-09-13 08:54:44

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