In an unforeseen turn of events, hosts India were on Monday forced to withdraw from the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022.
COVID-19 wreaked havoc within the Indian camp after they failed to field 13 players for their match against Chinese Taipei on Sunday.
Eventually, with 12 players testing positive for COVID-19 and two others being injured, the match against Chinese Taipei was called off just minutes before scheduled start of play.
“Accordingly, Article 4.1 of the Special Rules Applicable to AFC Competitions during Covid-19 Pandemic (“Special Rules”) applied,” read an official AFC statement.
“In view of the above, India was unable to participate in the match, is to be held responsible for the match not taking place, and is considered as to have withdrawn from the competition,” it added.
Applying Article 6.5.5 of the Competition Regulations, all matches of India are cancelled and considered null and void. For the avoidance of doubt, all points and goals in those matches shall not be taken into consideration when determining the final rankings in the group pursuant to Article 7.3.
In addition, in accordance with Article 7.4 of the Competition Regulations, the calculation of best third-placed Participating Teams among all groups shall be in accordance with Appendix 2 of the AFC Competition Operations Manual.
Only three (3) Participating Teams will now be participating in Group A of the competition.
The withdrawal comes as a big blow for India, who were looking to make it to the quarter-final stage in their bid to qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Here’s how Twitterati reacted to the incident:
I wish all the infected players and team officials a swift and full recovery. They will be well supported by the @IndianFootball and @theafcdotcom.
The team is heartbroken, and I request all to their feelings and sentiments. #WAC2022 #BlueTigresses #IndianFootball
— Praful Patel (@praful_patel) January 23, 2022
Absolutely devastated 💔 https://t.co/dwv6majm41
— Aditi Chauhan GK 🇮🇳 (@aditi03chauhan) January 23, 2022
Hope everyone on the Indian team recovers from this, tournament or no tournament. Hope everyone else in the competition stays safe and healthy. Nothing matters more.
— Anirudh (@AnirudhMenon89) January 23, 2022
Absolutely gutted for our women. They’ve trained so hard for this tournament. Right now just praying they recover well. That’s the most important bit. And I hope the other teams stay safe as well. #WAC2022
— Darren Caldeira (@darrencaldeira) January 23, 2022
Devastating! Imagine training for a tournament for years and then this happening. But then, you have to question the wisdom of not postponing #WAC2022 even after knowing how transmissible Omicron is #IndianFootball
— Vishnu Prasad (@visheprasad) January 23, 2022
With inputs from ANI