T&T Soca Princesses and Haiti have both gained automatic qualification to this year’s Concacaf Women’s Gold Cup. The decision was taken at a meeting held by Concacaf at its New York headquarters on Wednesday last.
Originally, the winner of the Caribbean Football Union Second Round Women’s Gold Cup/Central American and Caribbean Games (CAC) Games qualifiers, which were held in T&T earlier this month, were expected to gain automatic spots at the Gold Cup. But days before the tournament here in T&T, the format was changed.
Instead, the top two teams from each of the four-team groups were expected to advance to a final round from which the top three teams were set to qualify.
But at the meeting held by Concacaf last week it was decided the original format will be used with the two group winners, in host T&T and Haiti, moving into the final stage of the tournament to join already qualifiers Canada, Mexico, USA, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
The third CFU qualifier and the final team for the eight-team contest will be determined by the home-and-away series between the two second place teams in the groups, Guyana and Cuba on June 18 and July 2.
The Soca Princesses topped the Group F qualification with victories over St Lucia (6-1), Barbados (5-0) and Guyana (3-0) while Haiti defeated Antigua & Barbuda (4-1), Cuba (3-0) and Puerto Rico (2-0) to emerge as Group G winners.