Guwahati: The Women’s Under-17 World Cup in India, which was postponed to 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, was cancelled by the world governing body FIFA on Tuesday.

It has also been decided that India will host the 2022 edition of the World Cup. The decision was taken by the Bureau of the FIFA Council which took stock of the current global COVID-19 pandemic and its continuing impact on football.

“As a result and after careful consideration of the feedback received by the stakeholders combined with the inability to further postpone these tournaments, the FIFA-Confederations COVID-19 Working Group subsequently recommended that the 2020 editions of the two women’s youth tournaments be cancelled and that the hosting rights for the 2022 editions be offered to the countries that were due to host the 2020 editions,” FIFA said in a press release on Tuesday.

The statement said, “In light of this, and following further consultation between FIFA and the respective host member associations regarding the 2022 editions of the tournaments, the Bureau of the Council has approved Costa Rica as host of the U-20 Women’s World Cup 2022 and India as host of the U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 respectively.”

The tournament was supposed to be held in November 2020 initially, only for the pandemic to force a postponement. FIFA then revised the schedule and the tournament was to be held in February and march in 2021 in India.

India was appointed as the host by the FIFA Council meeting at Miami on 15 March 2019. But after taking stock of the pandemic situation, the governing body of the sport decided to scrap the event in its entirety.

India will now host the 2022 U17 Women’s World Cup while Costa Rica will get the chance to host the 2022 U19 Women’s World Cup.