Women

Chapter 6. AFC > Women's Asian Cup

♣ AFC Women's Asian Cup

The AFC Women's Asian Cup (formerly known as the AFC Women's Championship) is a quadrennial competition in women's football for national teams which belong to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It is the oldest women's international football competition and premier women's football competition in the AFC region for national teams.

The competition is also known as the Asian Women's Football Championship and the Asian Women's Championship. 20 tournaments have been held, with the current champions being China PR. The competition also serves as Asian qualifying tournament for the FIFA Women's World Cup.

▲ Women's Asian Cup Emblem

▼ Connection Pages

♣ History

The competition was set up by the Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC), a part of the AFC responsible for women's football. The first competition was held in 1975 and was held every two years after this, except for a period in the 1980s where the competition was held every three years. The ALFC was initially a separate organisation but was absorbed into the AFC in 1986.

From 1975 to 1981, matches were 60 minutes in duration.

The competition has been dominated by countries from the Pacific Rim or Eastern Asia (including East and Southeast Asia), with the China women's national football team having won 9 times, including a series of 7 consecutive victories as of 2022 edition. Countries from Central and West Asia have been rather less successful, with only Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Jordan and Iran having qualified so far. Eastern Asia has also been far more frequent in participating in the FIFA Women's World Cup, with five strongest women's teams of Asia (China, North Korea, Japan, Australia and South Korea) hail from this part.

The tournament frequency changed to every 4 years effective from 2010, after AFC had announced that the Asian Cup will additionally serve as the qualification rounds of the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Until 2003, teams were invited by the AFC to compete. From 2006, a separate qualification was established and the number of teams will be decided by the merit by qualification process. The name of the tournament was also changed to as the "AFC Women's Asian Cup", to reflect the change and reforms of the competition.

The tournament was expanded from eight teams to twelve starting from the 2022 edition.

On 20 August 2023, AFC has decided to shift the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to non-FIFA Women’s World Cup odd years, which will see the edition after the upcoming 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup takes place in 2029 instead of 2030.

On 13 September 2024, AFC announced the change in the format of their women's national team competitions, including a new qualifying format for the Women's Asian Cup. In addition, the Women's Asian Cup will no longer serve as Asian qualifying tournament for the FIFA Women's World Cup from 2031 and instead serve as qualification for AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament since 2028.

♣ Trophy

The current AFC Women’s Asian Cup trophy was handcrafted by London-based company, Thomas Lyte. Lifted the first time in Jordan in 2018, the trophy is made from 5.5kg of hallmarked sterling silver and took over 140 hours to create. Sitting at 52.5cm in height, the trophy discreetly symbolises the tournament’s long history. The handles, cast from six solid silver bars, are a reminder of the six countries which took part in the inaugural competition in 1975. The base of the trophy, is decorated with the images of eight modern female footballers.

At the unveiling of the trophy in March 2018, AFC president Shaikh Salman said: “The new AFC Women’s Asian Cup trophy is a striking design that reflects the value of the competition as the Continent’s top women’s football tournament. The AFC has trusted Thomas Lyte for all of our trophy designs since 1997 and I am happy to see this relationship flourish with this magnificent trophy which is fitting of such a prestigious competition.”

♣ Format

All of the 47 members of the AFC who have a women's national team are eligible to participate in the qualification tournament.

Starting from 2022 edition, a total of twelve teams participate in the final tournament including the hosts, top three finishers of the previous edition and eight teams from the qualification tournament.

♣ Results