AFC Women's Asian Cup in India most engaging ever on digital platforms

The Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) digital channels witnessed unprecedented growth during the January 20 to February 6 tournament in Mumbai and Pune as the statistics grew by a staggering 5324 per cent as compared to the 2018 edition in Jordan. "The AFC Women's Asian Cup India 2022 has left an indelible digital footprint, with the engagement and coverage of the showpiece surpassing the previous edition and soaring to an all-time high record," the AFC said in a statement.

The tournament's digital platform received more than 270 million impressions, 17 million engagements and 74 million video views across its channels. The AFC reached out to more fans by producing coverage in Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Farsi and Indonesian, in addition to its coverage in English.

"The AFC Women's Asian Cup India 2022 has achieved many milestones, on and off the pitch, with our talented football teams and officials creating history while our digital platforms continue to rise in record numbers and engaging with more fans than ever before," AFC's General Secretary Datuk Seri Windsor John said. The tournament, however, turned out to be a heart break for India as they were forced to withdraw after playing their first group match as the home team could not assemble enough players for the second game due to a COVID-19 outbreak in their hotel.

India head coach Thomas Dennerby had blamed the AFC for the home team's off-the-field debacle.