Six teams will compete in the OFC U-19 Women’s Championship which is being held at Ngahue Reserve in Auckland from 11-24 July and hosted by the Oceania Football Confederation.
Defending champions New Zealand will be joined by Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Samoa as they each bid for the 2017 title and a place in the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup France 2018.
The format of the competition is a round robin league, with three games scheduled for each match day. Teams will play each other once over five match days – with at least two rest days between each match day – and the team with the most points after Match Day 5 will directly qualify to represent Oceania at the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup France 2018, kicking off in August next year.
OFC Competitions Director Chris Kemp said it is an exciting competition which OFC is looking forward to hosting at the future OFC Home of Football.
“We had some mixed results at the previous edition of the then OFC U-20 Women’s Championship two years ago and since then a lot of development has gone into the women’s game,” he said.
“Both New Zealand and Papua New Guinea performed outstandingly at the U-20 Women’s World Cup last year which is likely to have inspired a few of these competing nations, and I know the preparations for many of them are well underway.”
The order of opponents for each competing team will be determined at the Official Draw for the 2017 OFC U-19 Women’s Championship at the OFC Headquarters on Wednesday 31 May 2017.