FIFA will consider proposals to merge the U-17 and U-20 FIFA World Cups for both men and women into one competition with increased participation and regularity.<\/p>\n
As it stands, the FIFA U-17 and U-20 competitions are played every 2 years with 24 teams for the men and 16 teams for the women\u2019 editions.<\/p>\n
FIFA will now consider merging the two competitions with the men\u2019s tournament increased to 48 teams and the women\u2019s to 24, to be\u00a0played every year instead of biennially.<\/p>\n
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the idea will be debated and discussed further by FIFA and will come into effect from 2020 if approved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea would be to have an increased number of participants to 48 for the boys and 24 for the women. And instead of having an U-17 and an U-20, we would now have one age category competition which could be U-18 or an U-19 that will be played on an annual basis instead of every two years,\u201d Gianni Infantino said at a press briefing after the FIFA Council meeting in Kolkata, India where the FIFA U-17 World Cup is currently taking place.<\/p>\n
Infantino also revealed that FIFA will consider co-hosting for the proposed new format to give smaller associations the ability to still be able to bid for hosting rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course with such high number of teams, we\u2019re looking at co-hosting in order to give the possibility to smaller associations around the world to be able to host the competition together with others,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Spain and England are set to contest the FIFA U-17 World Cup final on Saturday.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
By: Fentuo Tahiru\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FIFA will consider proposals to merge the U-17 and U-20 FIFA World Cups for both men and women into one competition with increased participation and regularity. As it stands, the FIFA U-17 and U-20 competitions are played every 2 years with 24 teams for the men and 16 teams for the women\u2019 editions. FIFA will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[337,300,1708],"yoast_head":"\n