AFC U-17 Women's Asian Cup Qualifiers: Format, fixtures & more

India will play their first qualifier on 26th April against Kyrgyz Republic.

The AFC U-17 women’s Asian Cup qualifiers is an U-17 football tournament that will determine the teams playing in the 2024 U-17 Women’s Asian Cup. A total of eight teams will play in the Asian Cup, out of which four teams have already made their way into the final tournament, whereas the other four teams will be decided with the help of this qualifying competition.

The teams that have already qualified are Indonesia, Japan, North Korea and China. Indonesia are the host nation, whereas the other three were the top teams of the 2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship qualification, and have, thus, directly qualified.

The AFC U-17 Women's Asian Cup Qualifiers will be played in two rounds, with the first round having begun on the 22nd of this month, and set to be played until the 30th of April. Here is everything you need to know about this qualifier tournament.

Teams Participating

Thailand

Malaysia

Northern Mariana Islands

Australia

Chinese Taipei

Mongolia

Vietnam

Uzbekistan

Palestine

Bangladesh

Singapore

Turkmenistan

South Korea

Hong Kong

Tajikistan

Myanmar

India

Kyrgyzstan

Philippines

Lebanon

Guam

Iran

Jordan

Nepal

Format

The 2024 AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers will be played across two rounds. 

In the first round, the teams will be drawn into eight groups, and each team has to play a game against all other teams in its group in a centralized venue. Following this, the eight group winners advance to the second round.

Similarly, in the second round, the eight table toppers will be divided into two groups of four, and the two group winners and the two group runners-up will finally qualify for the final tournament and will join the four automatically qualified teams.

The teams playing are going to be ranked on points. For a win, a team will get three points, one point for a draw, and none for a loss. At the end of all the games, if two teams are tied on points, then the following criteria are to be followed.

• Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams
• Goal difference in all group matches
• Goals scored in all group matches
• Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group
• Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points)
• Drawing of lots

Host Nations

For each group, a centralized venue has been picked, and all the games in that particular group will be played in that venue. The eight host nations for the eight groups are Thailand, Vietnam, Jordan, Singapore, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Guam.

Player Eligibility

Players born between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2009 are eligible to compete in the tournament.

Indian’s fixtures for the U-17 Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers.

26th April 2023: India VS Kyrgyz Republic; 1.30 am IST

28th April 2023: India VS Myanmar; 1.30 am IST

Group F standings

Pos	Team	MP	Points	W	D	L	GD
1	India	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	Myanmar	0	0	0	0	0	0
3	Kyrgyz Republic	0	0	0	0	0	0

Second round

The draw for the second round of the qualifiers will be held after the completion of the first round, at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

For the second round, the eight teams will be drawn into two groups of four teams. The teams will be seeded according to their performance in the 2019 AFC U-16 Women's Championship final tournament and qualification.

The second round of qualification is set to commence on the 16th of September and will continue until the 24th of the same month.