Praful Patel, President, All India Football Federation (Photo courtesy: AIFF Media)
All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Mr. Praful Patel stated that the AIFF is working in “close collaboration” with FIFA to choose the “earliest possible timeline” for hosting the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.
The AIFF President’s tweeted from his official Twitter account: “I am happy to share that we are working with #FIFA to choose a new and earliest possible timeline to host the U-17 Women’s World Cup. The LOC and FIFA are working in close collaboration to finalise new dates keeping health and safety a priority.”
In a subsequent tweet Mr Patel added that talks are on to ensure that the age criteria for the World Cup remains the same as was originally planned.
“We are also in discussions with FIFA to keep the age criteria of U-17 Women’s World Cup the same as originally planned, so that all the players who have been working very hard to prepare for the tournament, do not miss an opportunity to play due to the postponement,” he further tweeted.
The FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2020 was scheduled to take place between November 2-21, 2020 across five cities in India — Bhubaneshwar, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Navi Mumbai.
However, earlier this month, the tournament was postponed following a decision by the FIFA-Confederations working group in light of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across the globe.
India had earlier in 2017 successfully hosted the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 which stays the highest-ever attended FIFA youth tournament.
(AIFF Media)