In light of the current global COVID-19 pandemic, the Bureau of the FIFA Council has cancelled women’s youth tournaments planned for 2020.
Following discussion and approval at the most recent meeting of the FIFA-Confederations COVID-19 Working Group, and in consultation with various stakeholders – including the host member associations – to evaluate all options, the Bureau of the Council cancelled the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2020 and FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2020.
Since the previous decision earlier this year to reschedule both tournaments to early 2021, FIFA has had an extensive consultation process with stakeholders and concerns arising included challenges around preparation time for age-group teams, and the numerous obstacles to finalising the continental qualification tournaments due to the pandemic.
As a result and with the inability to further postpone these tournaments, the FIFA-Confederations COVID-19 Working Group subsequently recommended that the 2020 editions of the two women’s youth tournaments be cancelled and that the hosting rights for the 2022 editions be offered to the countries that were due to host the 2020 editions.
In light of this, the Bureau of the Council has approved Costa Rica as host of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2022 and India as host of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 respectively.
