January 24 – India, who had their AFC Women’s Asian Cup Group A match against Chinese Taipei cancelled yesterday after a covid outbreak within their squad, have now been officially withdrawn from the competition.
With the competition already on a schedule that sees teams playing every fourth day and with the final scheduled for February 6, any outside chance of India being able to rearrange the fixture was already verging on the impossible and compounded by the covid spread and the time required for quarantine of players.
All Indian matches will now be considered null and void with none of the points from the one game played (a 0-0 draw against Iran) being carried forward.
China, who beat Iran 7-0 on Sunday, have qualified for the quarter finals as group winners, while Chinese Taipei and Iran will meet to decide second place in the group on Wednesday.
The 12-team Women’s Asian Cup is currently mid-way through the second stage of group games (three groups of four teams). The top two teams from each group and the two best placed third finishing teams go through to the knockout rounds.
The AFC said: “To avoid any possible disparity in the final comparison between all third-placed teams, the results of the matches in Group B and C between the first, second and third-placed teams against the fourth-placed teams will not be counted.”
The breach of the covid bubble is a blow for Indian ambitions to host major tournaments. In October this year they host the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup and they are also in the running to host the 2027 men’s Asian Cup.
The All Indian Football Federation (AIFF) also had high ambition for their team at their home tournament, having sent them on exposure tours to Brazil, Sweden, Turkey, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates before the team held a training camp in Kochi.
The AFC Asian Women’s Cup serves as the final stage of World Cup qualifying and the pathway to the tournament co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand in 2023. Five finalists will qualify directly for the World Cup with two teams – from playoffs between the losing quarter finalists – advancing to the inter-confederation play-offs.
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