2017 Caribbean Women's Under-17 Qualifiers

[Tallman]

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Morace eager to enter Under 17 Women’s qualifiers.
TTFA Media.

Trinidad and Tobago Director of Women’s football Carolina Morace is optimistic about this country’s chances in the opening round of the Concacaf Caribbean Under 17 Women’s qualifying competition later this year towards the FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup.

The draw for the opening phase was held in Concacaf last week with T&T, hosts of Group A, being drawn to face US Virgin Islands, Curacao and Grenada. Haiti will host the final Caribbean round.

The winners of each group advance to the final round to join Haiti, where they are divided into two groups of three teams, with the top three teams qualifying for the final Concacaf tournament as the CFU representatives.

The FIFA Under 17 Women’s World Cup will be played in Uruguay in December, 2018 with sixteen team participating.

“Our players came into the national team directly from the schools without any stage between so we have been working alot to get them ready for the international level,” Morace said.

“We selected young players knowing that our target is to develop players for the women’s national team. The programme has been ongoing for three months now and we are curious to understand where we are at this stage.

“We are hosting the first phase so it is important for us to be ready in order to give a good showing to the fans and also to secure our spot in the final round,” Morace said.

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CONCACAF cancels women's tournament in Nicaragua due to violence
Reuters

The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) canceled its Under-17 women’s championship on Sunday after political violence spread across the host nation Nicaragua.

“CONCACAF determined that to guarantee the safety of the delegations, and all participants and fans, the cancellation will apply to all matches and events and take immediate effect,” the ruling body said in a statement.

Only six of the 12 group games had been played but four days of violent street protests against changes in social security left at least six people dead.

The tournament serves as a qualifier for the Under-17 World Cup and CONCACAF said it would rule on qualification procedures at a later date.

Nicaragua's President Withdraws Social Security Reforms That Sparked Violent Unrest
By Alexis Diao, NPR

The welfare reform package proposed by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega that set off days of deadly protests has been canceled.

In a televised national address, Ortega said the board of Nicaragua's social security system had voted to revoke the measures that were approved last week.

The sweeping pension overhaul plan that increases contributions for workers and employer, but lowers overall benefits.

The changes sparked demonstrations Wednesday that escalated into several days of violent anti-government demonstrations.

"The protests have killed at least seven people and injured hundreds more," Ortega said in his message to the country, according to Reuters.

But a local human rights group, the Nicaraguan Human Rights Office (Cenidh), says at least 25 people have been killed in the clashes. President Ortega's forces are accused of using live rounds to quell the demonstrations.

The protests have been partly driven by students in the capital of Managua, but have rippled to at least 10 cities across the country.

In the coastal city of Bluefield, a journalist broadcasting on Facebook Live was reportedly shot in the head and killed. Angel Gahona was talking about a broken ATM machine when a gunshot is heard and his body slumps to the ground. The video, which has been widely circulated on social media seems to have poured fuel on the protests.

Ortega has been in office since 2007. This is his fourth term as president, and the protests are widely seen as his biggest challenge yet.

In earlier remarks Saturday, Ortega seemed to further enrage Nicaraguans by saying the protesters were being politically manipulated; and pointed to the reforms as only being a proposal, and that he was open to negotiations with the business community.

The business community however, which is widely seen as an ally to the government, released a statement saying it would not sit down until freedom is speech is restored and police violence stops.

The BBC reports that independent TV stations have been taken off the air after broadcasting the protests live.

In Managua, protesters are reportedly looting dozens of businesses and have also toppled a tree of life sculpture that was erected as part of the First Lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo's beautification initiative. The toppling of the sculpture seen as a purposeful reprimand of Murillo.

On Sunday, Pope Francis called the bloodshed in Nicaragua "useless" and called for a peaceful resolution "with a sense of responsibility."

The U.S. State Department is calling for calm in the country, saying in a statement, "We condemn the violence and the excessive force used by police and others against civilians."

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Concacaf Teams In The Under-17 Women’s World Cup
CONCACAF

With the crowning of the United States as winner of the Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship, the three teams representing the Confederation at the Under-17 World Cup in Uruguay have been decided.

In the draw held last May 29 at the home of FIFA in Zurich, taking into account the Concacaf Championship which had initially took place in Nicaragua before being suspended and transferred to the United States, the three Concacaf teams were assigned in the following manner based on FIFA regulations.

Pot 1: Uruguay, Japan, North Korea, Spain
Pot 2: Germany, Ghana, United States (Concacaf 1), Mexico (Concacaf 2, Canada)
Pot 3: Brazil, New Zealand, (Concacaf 3, United States), South Korea
Pot 4: Colombia, South Africa, Cameroon, Finland.

Draw Procedure

The 16 qualified teams are assigned to four pots of four teams, each one based upon a ranking in accordance with its past performance.

The ranking is based on the total number of points obtained in the last five FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cups (three points for a victory, one point for a draw, zero for a defeat). The ranking used to form the pots is based on the points obtained in the 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cups.

To allow for the ranking to accurately reflect current form, priority is given to results in previous World Cups. To a lesser extent, attention is also paid to the results of previous years. The system uses five cycles, with points won in a World Cup decreasing linearly during the cycles:

2016: 100% of the value of total points
2014: 80% of the value of total points
2012: 60% of the value of total points
2010: 40% of the value of total points
2008: 20% of the value of total points

In addition, five bonus points are added to each one of the confederation champions that won its qualifying tournament.

* The three reserved places for the Concacaf teams are based on the ranking of the best teams that represented Concacaf in the last five FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cups.

The places of Concacaf 1, 2 and 3 will be assigned to the teams that qualify in the order reflected in the ranking based on points obtained in the last five FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cups, with five additional points awarded to the winner of the 2018 CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship.

The groups were determined as such following the draw:

Conformation of the groups (sic)

Grupo A: Uruguay, Ghana, New Zealand, Finland
Grupo B: Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Japan
Grupo C: USA, Cameroon, North Korea, Germany
Grupo D:  Korea Republic, Spain, Canada, Colombia

The 2018 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup will be played from November 13 to December 1 at three different sites: Estadio Domingo Burgueno Miguel in Maldonado; Estadio Alberto Suppici in Colonia and Estadio Churrua in Montevideo.