2024 WAFF Women's Championship

The 2024 WAFF Women's Championship was the 8th edition of the WAFF Women's Championship, the biennial international women's football tournament in West Asia competed by the national teams in the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF).^[1] The tournament was hosted by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it was the first major women's football tournament to be hosted in the kingdom.^[2]^[3]

2024 WAFF Women's Championship
بطولة اتحاد غرب آسيا الثامنة للسيدات

Tournament details
Host country	Saudi Arabia
City	Jeddah
Dates	19–29 February
Teams	8 (from 3 sub-confederations)
Venue(s)	2 (in 1 host city)
Final positions
Champions	Jordan (6th title)
Runners-up	Nepal
Tournament statistics
Matches played	15
Goals scored	56 (3.73 per match)
Attendance	12,700 (847 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Sabitra Bhandari (9 goals)
Best player(s)	Maysa Jbarah
Best goalkeeper	Sherin Al-Shalabe
← 2022 2026 →

Jordan were three-time defending champions having won the last three editions (Jordan 2014, Bahrain 2019 and Jordan 2022).^[4] and they successfully retained the title for the sixth time, after beating Nepal on penalties in the final.^[5]^[6] In the other hand tournament's host Saudi Arabia were unable to secure victory in any of their matches.^[7] Nepalese striker Sabitra Bhandari won the top scorer award scoring nine goals throughout the tournament. Jordanian player Maysa Jbarah was voted the tournament's best player, whilst Jbarah teammate Sherin Al-Shalabe was awarded the best goalkeeper award.

Teams edit

Participating teams edit

On 4 February 2024, the WAFF announced that 8 countries would participate in the 2024 edition – the highest number of participating countries in a single edition since United Arab Emirates 2011 – with Saudi Arabia participating for the first time in a major football tournament.^[8]^[9] This was also the first edition where non-West Asian Football Federation members were also invited, namely Guam, an EAFF member and Nepal, a SAFF member.^[10]

Although numerous Egyptian media outlets indicated that an invitation had been sent to the Egypt women's national football team for the 2024 edition, the team was not included in the list of participants published on 4 February 2024^[11]^[12]

Country	Appearance	Previous best performance	FIFA ranking December 2023
Guam	1st	Debut	93
Iraq^[13]	2nd	Group stage (2011)	NR
Jordan	8th	Champions (2005, 2007, 2014, 2019, 2022)	74
Lebanon	5th	Runners-up (2022)	134
Nepal	1st	Debut	105
Palestine	7th	Runners-up (2014)	136
Saudi Arabia	1st	Debut	175
Syria	5th	Third place (2005, 2022)	160

Did not enter

Draw edit

The final draw took place at the West Asian Football Federation Headquarters in Amman, Jordan, on 5 February 2024 at 11:00 AST (UTC+3).^[14]

For the draw, The eight participating teams were drawn into a singular pot. Saudi Arabia, the host nation was identified by a different color and was automatically allocated to Group A, Position A1. A second pot with 8 balls representing positions A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, B3, and B4 was used for the draw. The A1 position was marked with a different color. each time a team was drawn from the first pot was simultaneously assigned its specific position from the second pot.^[15]

Squads edit

Each team had to register a squad of 23 players, minimum three of whom must be goalkeepers.

Match officials edit

Referees

Mohamed Juma
Ahmed Saad
Ahmed Gatea
Esraa Al-Mbaiden
Haneen Murad
Doumouh Al Bakkar
Muath Owfi
Alesar Baddour
Khuloud Al-Zaabi

Assistant referees

Nawaf Moosa
Salman Mohamed Talasi
Karrar Abbas Half
Islam Al-Abadi
Sabreen Al-Abadi
Mohamad El Hajje
Alaa Amro
Roba Zarka
Amal Badhafari

Venues edit

On 4 February 2024, WAFF announced Jeddah as the designated host city, with two chosen venues: the annex stadium of King Abdullah Sports City for the group stage and Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City for the knockout stage.

Jeddah	Jeddah
	King Abdullah Sports City Reserve Stadium	Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports City
	Capacity: 10,000	Capacity: 27,000

Group stage edit

Tiebreakers

Teams were 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 were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings:

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;
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.

Group A edit

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Jordan	3	3	0	8	1	+7	9	Advance to knockout phase
2	Lebanon	3	2	1	7	7	0	6	Advance to knockout phase
3	Guam	3	1	2	5	7	−2	3
4	Saudi Arabia (H)	3	0	3	3	8	−5	0

Source: GSA
(H) Hosts

19 February 2024