July 6 – CONCACAF has put its U15 national team championship back into the calendar and will hold the Girls edition August 9-21 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney in Orlando, Florida. Twenty three nations are entered.
The confederation cancelled its boys U15 championships to be held last year in the Cayman Islands after the corruption crisis that engulfed the regional governing body and its officials saw funding disappear.
That championship had more than 36 teams entered including England and Brazil from outside the confederation. An initiative of former president Jeffrey Webb, the first U15 championship was a boys competition in 2013 with the girls edition the following year. But with the arrest of Webb in the football corruption scandal, the governing body was forced into a series of cost-cutting measures as it fought for its life.
Canada are the reigning Girls U15 Champions after beating Haiti 4-1 on penalities in the 2014 competition in the Cayman Islands. Both teams are competinig again and are joined by 20 others from CONCACAF as well as Venezuela from CONMEBOL, the South American federations.
Teams will play in three groups of five teams and two groups of four teams with the group winners, plus the second place teams from the five-team groups, going forward to the quarterfinal knockout rounds.
Competing countries are:
CFU (16): Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Santa Lucia, St Vincent & Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, US Virgin Islands
UNCAF (3): Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua
North America (3): Canada, Mexico, United States
CONMEBOL (1): Venezuela
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