The Guwahati City FC (GCFC) has been nominated as the first-ever Football club from Assam for Hero Indian Women’s League 2021-22 Qualifiers.
Good news for the people and players:
This news brings new hopes and boosts morale of the players and people of Assam Women’s Football as the Indian National Senior Women’s team have been preparing for AFC Women’s Asian Cup to be held at Mumbai from January 20.
About GCFC Football Academy:
Several promising girl Footballers are getting trained in the GCFC Football Academy. The club which started its first-ever Golden Baby League in the state has been preparing to script history again by participating in the top division of Indian Women’s Football and opening up new opportunities for local women footballers, said a club statement released by Director Kaustab Chakraborty.
About AFC Women’s Asian Cup:
India was recommended as the host of the tournament by AFC Women’s Football Committee and selected as the host in June 2020 and this year will be the second time that the country will hosts the competition, the first being in 1979. On 28 January 2021, the AFC confirmed that the tournament would take place between 20 January and 6 February 2022, instead of the original scheduled dates of late October and early November.
For the first time in the competition, the final tournament was expanded from eight teams to twelve. It will serve as the final stage of Asian qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Five teams will qualify directly for the World Cup via the knockout stage (including play-offs for fifth place or possibly sixth place), and two more teams will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs.
India had previously hosted the 1980 AFC Women’s Championship, originally scheduled for 1979, and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) had hosted the 1977 and 2001 editions of the tournament. The host country India and the top three teams of the previous tournament in 2018 qualified automatically, while the other eight teams were decided by qualification matches played in September and October 2021.
On January 6, 2022, the AFC announced the list of 16 referees, 16 assistant referees, two stand-by referees, two stand-by assistant referees and six video match officials for the tournament. Video assistant referees (VAR) would be used from the quarter-finals onwards.
The venues for the 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup are located across three cities in India, and matches will be played in three stadiums. The host cities were originally Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar and Navi Mumbai, and the AFC confirmed the three host cities of the event in June 2021.
