U-20 Women's World Cup to move forward despite UEFA boycott threat, says USA coach

United States U-20 women’s national team manager Vicky Jepson said she believes the upcoming U-20 Women’s World Cup will be held as scheduled, despite an ongoing threat from UEFA to boycott the event.

On Wednesday, Aug. 19, Jepson named a 21-player roster for the upcoming tournament in Poland.

The USWNT will kick off the competition on Sept. 6 against Italy before facing Japan and New Zealand, but the entire tournament has been thrown into doubt in recent weeks.

UEFA said earlier this month that its boycott of FIFA competitions still stands, despite the end of the controversial private investment plan that sparked the threat in the first place.

The European governing body said that its threat to boycott is still in place because it has not received assurances that FIFA president Gianni Infantino will not attempt to revive the plan.

UEFA has strongly criticized Infantino for the proposal, saying that it had lost confidence in his ability to lead FIFA.

But in a call with reporters on Wednesday, Jepson said she had heard nothing to suggest the tournament wouldn’t take place.

“No, absolutely not,” Jepson said when asked if there was a suggestion of the tournament not happening.

“And I work at a great federation that would be pulling me in a meeting to inform me of that. It’s business as usual, and we’re all prepared.”

She added: “I know there’s a lot of noise around it, but that noise hasn’t slipped into our camp, and it’s certainly something that I’ve not been concerned about because the federation has never once said to me that there’s a concern about this tournament going ahead.”