Dates 3–12 April 2017 | ||
Host countries Tajikistan (Group A)
North Korea (Group B)
Palestine (Group C)
Vietnam (Group D) Teams 21 (from 1 confederation) | ||
The 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualification is the qualification tournament for the 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup.
Contents
A total of 21 teams entered the qualification tournament, which decides four of the eight participating teams in the final tournament held in Jordan. This tournament also serves as the first stage of qualification for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup for the Asian zone, with the top five teams of the final tournament qualifying for the World Cup.
Draw
A total of 24 teams entered the 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup, with Japan, Australia, and China PR automatically qualified for the final tournament by their position as the top three teams of the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup and thus not participating in the qualifying competition. Jordan also automatically qualified for the final tournament as hosts, but decided to also participate in the qualifying competition.
The draw was held on 21 January 2017, 15:00 AST (UTC+2), at the Grand Hyatt in Amman, Jordan. The 21 teams were drawn into one group of six teams and three groups of five teams.
The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup final tournament and qualification. The four teams which indicated their intention to host prior to the draw were drawn into separate groups. As Iran and Syria had indicated they would not travel to Palestine, they would not be drawn into the group hosted by Palestine.
Format
In each group, teams play each other once at a centralised venue. The four group winners qualify for the final tournament. If Jordan win their group, the runner-up of their group also qualifies for the final tournament.
Tiebreakers
Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 11.5):
- Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
- Goal difference 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 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.
Groups
Group A is played between 3–12 April, Groups B and D are played between 3–11 April, while Group C, after the withdrawal of two teams, is played between 3–7 April 2017.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Qualified teams
The following eight teams qualify for the final tournament.