2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup
The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 20th 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). India was recommended as the host of the tournament by AFC Women's Football Committee and selected as the host in June 2020. It is the second time that the country hosts the competition, the first being in 1979. 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 for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (Regulations Article 4.6), in which Australia already qualified automatically as a co-host. Five teams qualified directly for the World Cup via the knockout stage, and two more teams advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs. Japan are the two-time defending champions, but were eliminated  in the semi-finals by China PR on a penalty shoot-out. China PR went on to win the title, their ninth title in total, by defeating South Korea 3–2 in the final. 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, and Chinese Taipei had hosted the 1977 and 2001 editions of the tournament. India was recommended as the host for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup by the AFC Women's Football  Committee on 19 February 2020. On 5 June 2020, India was awarded the hosting rights. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was held amidst the COVID-19 pandemic which affected the organization of the tournament. As a response, the tournament was held under a bio-secure bubble setup. All participating teams were granted exemption from institutional quarantine when foreigners are normally required to undergo home quarantine for seven days from 11 January 2022. Members of the participating team are to undergo initial test for COVID-19 upon arrival. They are required to stay put on their  hotels while they await their test results. Following negative test results, movement of players and officials are to be restricted to the hotel, the training and match venues. Several teams reported positive COVID-19 cases during the duration of the tournament namely China, India, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Host India were the most affected, with as much as 12 of their players testing positive for COVID-19 which rendered them unable to name 13 players required for their match against Chinese Taipei. India was forced to withdraw form the tournament due to tournament regulations. Qualification. The host country  India and the top three teams of the previous tournament in 2018 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 referees (VAR) would be used from the quarter-finals onwards. Originally, Law Bik Chi (Hong Kong) 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). Venues. The venues for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup are located across three cities in India, and matches are played in three stadiums. Originally, the host cities were Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar and Navi Mumbai, and the AFC confirmed the three host cities of the event in June 2021. However, on 6 July 2021, AFC announced Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra would host the tournament. All matches are played behind closed doors as a precaution due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Draw . The final draw was held on 28 October 2021, 15:00 MYT (), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 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 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 qualify for the quarter finals. 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 7.3): All times are local, IST (). Group A. 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 is for the  remaining three quarter-final losers to play a single round-robin play-off. The best team after three matches will advance to the World Cup, and the remaining two teams will enter the inter-confederation play-offs. <onlyinclude></onlyinclude> Qualified teams for FIFA Women's World Cup. Five teams from the AFC will qualify for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, apart from co-hosts Australia which qualified automatically, while two teams will advance to the inter-confederation play-offs. The slot for Australia was taken directly from the quota allocated to the AFC. Logo and sponsorships. The  official logo for the tournament was unveiled by the AFC and the local organising committee on 20 July 2021. The logo features the AFC Women's Asian Cup trophy at the centre, with a "swirl" surrounding the trophy "inspired by the national flags and colours 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 colour of the logo is inspired  by the art of the Warli 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 paintings. The use of silver in the logo is inspired by the "importance of silver jewellery in Indian households and the beauty and elegance of the precious metal". The official global partners of the tournament are Continental AG, Credit Saison, Neom, and Yili Group, while Kelme and Konami are official global supporters.