The 2017 OFC U-17 Women's Championship was the 4th edition of the OFC U-16/U-17 Women's Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organised by the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) for the women's under-16/under-17 national teams of Oceania. The tournament was held in Samoa between 4–18 August 2017.[1][2]
For this tournament the age limit was lowered from under-17 to under-16. The winners of the tournament qualified for the 2018 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Uruguay as the OFC representative.[3]
Teams
All eleven OFC member national teams entered the tournament. It would be the first time in the history of the OFC U-17 Women's Championship that all eleven members of the OFC take part in the tournament.[2] However, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu later withdrew from the tournament, so only eight teams would take part.
Players born on or after 1 January 2001 were eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team could name a maximum of 20 players.[4]
Group stage
The draw for the group stage was held on 29 June 2017 at the OFC Headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand. The eleven teams were drawn into one group of six teams (Group A) and one group of five teams (Group B). Based on results of the previous three editions, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea were seeded into one pot and drawn into either Group A or B, while the remaining nine teams were placed in another pot and drawn into any of the remaining five spots in Group A or the remaining four spots in Group B.[2]
After the withdrawal of Vanuatu in Group A,[5] and Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea in Group B,[6] Group A was left with five teams and Group B was left with three teams. A draw was held on 29 July 2017 at the OFC Headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand, which saw Tonga moved from Group A to Group B so that both teams would have four teams. The tournament schedule was also revised and would end one week earlier, with the semi-finals and final now played on 15 and 18 August instead of 22 and 25 August.
Each group was played in round-robin format. The top two teams of each group advanced to the semi-finals.
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