July 30 – Jordan will host the upcoming AFC Women’s Club Championship – Pilot Tournament, the first time a Continental women’s club competition will take place in West Asia.
Jordan has been a leader in region for women’s football having been the first West Asian nation to host the AFC Women’s Asian Cup – the Continent’s flagship women’s national team competition – in 2018, following the highly successful staging of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in 2016.
The AFC has confirmed that the four participating clubs in the pilot tournament will be host side Amman Club, FC Bunyodkor from Uzbekistan, Islamic Republic of Iran’s Shahrdari Sirjan and Gokulam Kerala FC from India.
The tournament will be played from November 7- 12, 2021 at the Aqaba Development Corporate Stadium in the country’s capital of Amman.
Launched in 2019, Japanese side Nippon TV Beleza were the first side to win the inaugural pilot women’s club tournament in Yongin, Korea Republic, after emerging ahead of China PR’s Jiangsu Suning Ladies Football Club, host club Incheon Hyundai Steel Red Angels and Australia’s Melbourne Victory.
The AFC said that “due to the travel restrictions and logistical challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no host interest from the Clubs in the East and the AFC will announce the following steps in due course.
“The pilot editions represent a pivotal part of the AFC’s ambitions to lay the foundations for the development and professionalism of Asian women’s football clubs and to ensure the optimum preparation for the impending launch of the inaugural AFC Women’s Champions League in 2023.”
The AFC also said that the Club Licensing process for the men’s club game that has developed over the last decade, will be used as a pilot project for women’s clubs this year, with the regular cycle for the competition to begin from 2022.
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