June 24 – The AFC has drawn the qualifying groups for its flagship AFC Women’s Asian Cup to be held in India in 2022. The competition has been expanded to a 12-team finals with a record number of 28 nations going into the draw held at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.
Defending champions Japan, 2018 runners-up Australia and third-placed China PR, as well as hosts India, have already qualified for the Finals.
The 28 teams were drawn into four groups of four and four groups of three. Only the winners of each group will qualify for India 2022.
The dates and venues for the qualifying groups have still to be decided. The finals competition itself is scheduled for January 20 to February 6.
The finals will be hosted located across three cities in India, using three stadiums in Ahmedabad, Navi Mumbai and Bhubaneswar.
Before then the group qualification for those finals will be fierce and feature many nations that are in the early years of developing their women’s game. Group A will have three-time champions Chinese Taipei, Bahrain, Turkmenistan and Laos , while Group B will see Vietnam, Tajikistan, Maldives and Afghanistan.
Group C consists three-time winners DPR Korea, Singapore, Iraq and Indonesia with Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, Guam and Lebanon making up Group D.
Group E will see 2003 runners-up Korea Republic, Uzbekistan and Mongolia, in contention with Philippines, Hong Kong and Nepal the cast for Group F.
Jordan, the 2018 hosts, Islamic Republic of Iran and Bangladesh make up Group G while 1983 winners Thailand, Palestine and Malaysia will fight for top spot in Group H.
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