NEW DELHI: The All India Football Federation has secured clearance from the Union Sports Ministry to bid for the 2020 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. The other country in the running to host the event is football superpower France.
“The Sports Ministry has given a no-objection certificate to the AIFF which it had been asking for. They said it’s a prerequisite thing to be submitted with the bid document, so the government has given them the document,” Sports Secretary Rahul Bhatnagar told Times of India.
The AIFF, along with the bid, also has to submit financial and organisational guarantees to FIFA for securing the tournament. “We received the no objection certificate from the Ministry of Sports. So, we are going to submit our bid for the 2020 U-17 Women’s World Cup by the end of this month,” AIFF general secretary Kushal Das, who is attending the three-day FIFA executive football summit in Morocco, told Telegraph India.
While the ministry has issued its NOC, it has not yet acceded to AIFF’s request for financial aid, which is reportedly in the region of Rs 500 million. This is apart from the organisational grant that the FIFA hands out to every host nation. “We had given a proposal for renovation of stadiums and other developmental work. The ministry said it was not in a position to provide that facility at this stage. But we expect things would change after we submit our bid for the tournament,” Das added.
The financial assistance could also depend on the upgradation works already undertaken during the 2017 U-17 World Cup at six venues as the next 16-team U-17 Women’s World Cup is set to be played at four venues.
For the record, it was on 25 July 2018 that FIFA announced the bidding process had begun for the 2020 U-20 Women’s World Cup and the 2020 U-17 Women’s World Cup.
Member associations were set a deadline of 12 September 2018 to declare interest in hosting either one of the events. While FIFA had allowed for one member association to bid for both tournaments, football’s world governing body had made clear that two different hosts will be appointed.
It bears noting that the AIFF had expressed an interest in hosting both tournaments. The latest development therefore effectively means that the AIFF has dropped out of the running for the U-20 Women’s World Cup, leaving the way clear for South Korea, the only other bidder, to win hosting rights.
The hosts for both tournaments are expected to be appointed by the FIFA Council in the first quarter of 2019.
The U-17 Women’s World Cup is a biennial tournament. The last edition was held in Uruguay.
India successfully hosted the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup. The attendance across all the matches – 1,347,143 – made the U-17 World Cup the most attended event ever, surpassing China’s record of 1,230,976, set during the 1985 edition of the tournament.
