Odisha Women FC to represent India in Asian Football Confederation

Indian football club Odisha Women FC will represent India in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Women’s Champions League 2024-25. However, it came after Odisha FC emerged as the winner of the Indian Women’s League (IWL) champions.

After winning the Indian Women’s League 2023-24, Odisha FC ensured they would be in the first AFC Women’s Champion League. Odisha FC is a Bhubaneswar-based football club that won 10 out of 12 games and secured first in the IWL league table.

Congratulations to @OdishaFCW for earning 🇮🇳 India's spot in the inaugural AFC Women’s Champions League 2024-25.🏆⚽️

Best of luck as you represent our nation on the international stage. 👍🏻#OdishaForFootball pic.twitter.com/VFTdxwprLx
— Odisha Sports (@sports_odisha) May 7, 2024

Before Odisha FC, the Indian football club Gokulam Kerala played for India in 2023 in the AFC Women’s Club Championship. They came in second place in Group A.

This August marks the start of the 2024-25 AFC Women’s Champions League, which will become Asia’s premier women’s club football tournament moving forward.

Twenty teams from several countries will send teams to the 2024-25 AFC Women’s Champions League. First, there will be an initial round. Then, there will be a group stage and final rounds.

However, the first stage of the AFC League will begin on August 1, 2024. The top teams will move to the Women’s Champions League’s group stage. After that, national teams with higher world rankings will have their teams start right away in the group stage.

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There will be 12 teams in the tournament, divided into three groups of four teams. Odisha FC is likely to make it out of the group stage. The teams will play these rounds in a single round-robin style. It will happen in October.

Single round-robin style means that each team in the AFC League plays against every other team once. The quarterfinals will have the top two teams from each group and two best third-place teams.

Then, Saudi Arabia will host the semi-finals and the final rounds in Riyadh in 2025. The qualifying rounds will start in March 2025. Hence, Odisha Women FC is about to represent India with their impressive performance in IWL.