FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup: Number of venues may be reduced from five to three

The number of venues for the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, to be held in India later this year, is likely to be reduced owing to the pandemic.
Jaime Yarza, FIFA’s Director of Tournaments, said on Tuesday that they are ‘open’ to the possibility but no decision has been taken yet. A FIFA team is currently in the country to inspect the venues for the 16-team event, scheduled to be held from October 11 to 30.
Currently, five venues have been named to host the competition – Bhubaneswar, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad and Navi Mumbai. Two cities are likely to be dropped from the l, it is learnt.

When asked whether the tournament will be held in just three cities, Yarza said: “Anything is open right now. There is no final decision, no final evaluation. It is a little bit together with the AIFF that FIFA will make a proposal after this inspection to see that we can guarantee success in the tournament and strengthen the development of women’s football without jeopardising the health of all the participants.”
India was originally scheduled to host the U-17 World Cup in 2020. However, that edition was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the country was given the right to host the competition in 2022. It’ll be the second major international football championship the country will host this year, having recently held the women’s Asian Cup across three venues in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune.
That tournament was held in the middle of the third wave of the pandemic and saw India being forced out after playing just one match after a Covid outbreak within the team.
Yarza said they are ‘evaluating various factors’ to make sure such a scenario isn’t repeated. However, he added that there is a possibility that they might not have a strict bio-bubble in place. “We do have an open mind on such matters but at this moment, it looks like we may not have to implement strict bio-bubble protocols. But the pandemic is not over so we will take all necessary safety measures. At the end of the day, the health of the players is very important,” Yarza said, adding that a decision to allow spectators for the matches will be taken in consultation with local authorities.

The FIFA team visited Navi Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium on Tuesday and is set to travel to Bhubaneswar on Wednesday, where they’ll inspect the Kalinga Stadium.
Yarza said that, among other aspects, they will look carefully ‘to minimise travel’ for the teams. “This is one of the things we are looking at carefully – to minimise travel as much as possible between the venues and to make sure, whenever travel is required, it is under the right circumstances which might be with chartered flights and things like that… These are various ways of doing this, these are part of the plan which we are re-evaluating.”