The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 20th edition of the

AFC Women's Asian Cup The AFC Women's Asian Cup (formerly known as the AFC Women's Championship) is a quadrennial competition in women's football for national teams which belong to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It is the oldest women's international football ...

, the quadrennial international

women's football Women's football most often refers to: * Women's association football Women's football may also refer to: * Women's gridiron football * Women's Australian rules football * Ladies' Gaelic football * Women's rugby league * Women's rugby union ...

tournament in Asia competed by the national teams in the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC).

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

was selected as the host nation by the AFC Women's Football Committee in June 2020. It was the first time that the country hosted the competition since

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...

. 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 served as the final stage of Asian

qualification Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

for the

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup was the ninth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international women's association football, football championship contested by List of women's national association football teams, women's nat ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

(Regulations Article 4.6), with

qualifying automatically as co-hosts. Five teams qualified directly for the World Cup via the knockout stage and two more advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

were the two-time defending champions, but were eliminated in the semi-finals by

China PR China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the e ...

on penalties. The Chinese went on to win their record-extending ninth title by defeating

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

3–2 in the final. The top three teams qualified for the 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup.

Host selection

The following three football associations submitted their interest to host the tournament by the 31 May 2019 deadline. * * * India had previously hosted the 1980 AFC Women's Championship, originally scheduled for 1979, while Chinese Taipei hosted the

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...

and

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

editions of the tournament. India was recommended for hosting the tournament by the AFC Women's Football Committee on 19 February 2020. On 5 June 2020, the country was awarded the hosting rights.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was held amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

which affected the organization of the tournament. As a response, the tournament was held under a

bio-secure bubble A bio-secure bubble, also known as a bubble, or hub city, was a hosting arrangement for sporting events that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, under which events were held at a centralized site, often behind closed doors, with strict quarant ...

setup. All participating teams were granted exemption from institutional quarantine when foreigners were normally required to undergo home quarantine for seven days from 11 January 2022. Members of the participating teams underwent initial tests for COVID-19 upon arrival. They were required to stay in their hotels while they awaited their test results. Following negative test results, the movement of players and officials were restricted to the hotel, and the training and match venues. Several teams reported positive COVID-19 cases during the tournament, namely China, India, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Host India were the most affected, with as many as 12 players testing positive for COVID-19, rendering them unable to name 13 players for their match against Chinese Taipei, as required. India was forced to withdraw due to tournament regulations.

Qualification

The host country

and the top three teams of the previous tournament in

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

qualified automatically, while the other eight teams were decided by qualification matches played in September and October 2021.

Qualified teams

The following twelve teams qualified for the tournament:

Match officials

On 6 January 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 referee The video assistant referee (VAR) is a Assistant referee (association football), match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those revi ...

s (VAR) would be used from the quarter-finals onwards. Originally, Law Bik Chi (

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

) was selected for the tournament. However, she was unable to travel to India due to travel restriction. She was replaced by Wang Chieh (

Chinese Taipei "Chinese Taipei" is the term used in various international organizations and tournaments for groups or delegations representing the Republic of China (ROC), a country commonly known as Taiwan. Due to the One China principle stipulated by the ...

). ;Referees * Casey Reibelt * Lara Lee * Kate Jacewicz * Qin Liang * Wang Chieh * Ranjita Devi Tekcham * Mahsa Ghorbani * Mahnaz Zokaee * Yoshimi Yamashita * Asaka Koizumi * Thein Thein Aye * Abirami Naidu * Oh Hyeon-jeong * Kim Yu-jeong * Pansa Chaisanit * Edita Mirabidova ;Assistant referees * Joanna Charaktis * Fang Yan * Xie Lijun * Uvena Fernandes * Ensieh Khabaz * Makoto Bozono * Naomi Teshirogi * Ramina Tsoi * Merlo Albano * Heba Saadieh * Kim Kyoung-min * Lee Seul-gi * Park Mi-suk * Supawan Hinthong * Kristina Sereda * Trương Thị Lệ Trinh ;Video assistant referees * Ali Sabah * Abdulla Al-Marri *

Kim Hee-gon Kim Hee-gon (; born on 4 November 1985) is a South Korean football referee who has been a FIFA listed international referee since 2013. He was active in the AFC Champions League, AFC Cup The AFC Champions League Two (abbreviated as the ACL T ...

* Hanna Hattab *

Sivakorn Pu-Udom Sivakorn Pu-udom (; , born 26 November 1987) is a Thai football referee. He referees for the Thai League 1, Chinese Super League, V.League 1 and other international competitions. Sivakorn was selected to officiate the Final of the 2018 AFC U-19 ...

* Omar Al-Ali ;Stand-by referees * Veronika Bernatskaia * Công Thị Dung ;Stand-by assistant referees * Nuannid Dornjangreed * Zilola Rahmatova

Venues

The venues for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup were located across three cities in

. Originally, the host cities were

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...

Bhubaneswar Bhubaneswar () is the capital and the largest city of the States and territories of India, Indian state of Odisha. It is located in the Khordha district. The suburban region, especially the old town, was historically often depicted as ''Chakra ...

and

Navi Mumbai Navi Mumbai (; also known as New Bombay, its official name until 1995) is a large city next to Mumbai, located in the Konkan division of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, on the mainland of India. Navi Mumbai is situated in Thane distr ...

, and the AFC confirmed the three host cities of the event in June 2021. However, on 6 July 2021, AFC announced

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

and

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

would host the tournament. All matches are played behind closed doors as a precaution due to the

Draw

The final draw was held on 28 October 2021, 15:00 MYT (

UTC+8 UTC+08:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +08:00. It is the most populous time zone in the world, as well as a possible candidate for ASEAN Common Time, mainly due to China's large population, with an estimated population ...

), at the AFC House in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

. The twelve teams were drawn into three groups of four teams. The seedings were based on their performance in

2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup The 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 19th edition of the AFC Women's Asian Cup, the quadrennial international football tournament in Asia competed by the women's national teams in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It was originally schedu ...

final tournament and qualification, with the hosts India automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Squads

Each team has to register a squad of a minimum of 18 players and maximum of 23 players, at least three of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Article 26.3).

Group stage

The top two teams of each group and the two best third-placed teams qualified for the quarter finals. ;Tiebreakers Teams were ranked according to

points A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

(3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 7.3): #Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #

Goal difference Goal difference, goal differential or points difference is a form of tiebreaker used to rank sport teams which finish on equal points in a league competition. Either "goal difference" or "points difference" is used, depending on whether matches ar ...

in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams; #If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; #Goal difference in all group matches; #Goals scored in all group matches; #

Penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group; #Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points); #Drawing of lots. All times are local, IST ( UTC+5:30).

Group A

---- ----

Group B

---- ----

Group C

---- ----

Ranking of third-placed teams

The top two teams qualified for the quarter finals. Due to the withdrawal of India in group A, results against the fourth-placed teams of each group B and C were not counted in determining the ranking of the third-placed teams.

Knockout stage

Bracket

The losers of the quarter-final matches entered play-offs, the format of which depended on

's results in the tournament.

Quarter-finals

The winners qualified for the

. The losers, except for

, entered the play-offs. ---- ---- ----

Semi-finals

----

Final

Awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Prize money

For the first time in the tournament's history, prize money was awarded to the top four teams of the tournament. The champions would receive US$1 million, the runners-up receive US$500,000 while the losing semi-finalists each receive US$150,000. In addition, five percent of the prize money earned by the champions and runners-up would be kept and issued to the AFC Dream Asia Foundation to fund social responsibility activities.

Play-offs

The format of the play-offs round depended on the performance of Australia, who qualified automatically for the World Cup as hosts. Since Australia was eliminated in the quarter finals, the play-offs format was for the remaining three quarter-final losers to play a single round-robin play-off. The best team after three matches advanced to the World Cup, and the remaining two teams entered the inter-confederation play-offs.

---- ----

Statistics

Goalscorers

Qualified teams for FIFA Women's World Cup

Five teams from the AFC qualified for the

, apart from co-hosts Australia which qualified automatically, while two teams advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Marketing

Logo

The official logo for the tournament was unveiled by the AFC and the local organizing committee on 20 July 2021. The logo features the AFC Women's Asian Cup trophy at the center, with a "swirl" surrounding the trophy "inspired by the national flags and colors of playing kits in Asia, and the iconic stadiums in which the AFC Women’s Asian Cup is played in and celebrates cultural diversity and the unwavering support and enthusiasm of fans for their national teams". The logo also contains elements inspired by the tournament host country. The

maroon Maroon ( , ) is a brownish crimson color that takes its name from the French word , meaning chestnut. ''Marron'' is also one of the French translations for "brown". Terms describing interchangeable shades, with overlapping RGB ranges, inc ...

colour of the logo is inspired by the art of the

Warli The Warli or ''Varli'' are an indigenous tribe (Adivasi) of western India, living in mountainous as well as coastal areas along the Maharashtra-Gujarat border and surrounding areas. They have their own animistic beliefs, life, customs and tradi ...

people, a tribe native to the northern Western Ghats in the tournament's host state of Maharashtra. Red and maroon colours are often used as the base of

Warli painting Warli painting is tribal art mostly created by the tribal people from the North Western Ghats, Sahyadri Range in Maharashtra, India. Warli paintings exist in cities such as Dahanu, Talasari, Jawhar, Palghar, Mokhada, and Vikramgad of Palghar di ...

s. The use of silver in the logo is inspired by the "importance of silver jewelry in Indian households and the beauty and elegance of the precious metal".

Sponsorships

Source:

Official Global Partners

Continental AG Continental AG, commonly known as Continental and colloquially as Conti, is a German multinational automotive parts manufacturing company. Headquartered in Hanover, Lower Saxony, it is the world's third- largest automotive supplier and the fo ...

* Credit Saison *

Neom Neom (styled NEOM; , ) is an arcology and planned city being built by Saudi Arabia in Tabuk Province. Launched in 2017 by crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, the site is at the northern tip of the Red Sea, due east of Egypt across the Gulf of A ...

* Yili Group

Official Global Supporters

* Kelme *

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

Molten Corporation is a sports equipment and automotive parts company based in Hiroshima, Japan. Molten is mostly known for manufacturing balls for several team sports, with a range of products that includes American footballs, association footballs, basketb ...

Broadcasting rights

AFC

Rest of the world

References

External links

*, the-AFC.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Afc Women's Asian Cup 2022

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification

Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior list of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the contin ...

International association football competitions hosted by India January 2022 sports events in India February 2022 sports events in India Sports events affected by the COVID-19 pandemic