The 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup was to be the 23rd edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. It was scheduled to be hosted by Indonesia between 20 May and 12 June 2021, which would be the first FIFA tournament hosted by the country. It would also be only the second U-20 World Cup to be held in Southeast Asia, first since 1997, and the first FIFA tournament in the region since the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup. Ukraine were the defending champions, but did not qualify for the tournament after the UEFA decided to cancel 2020 UEFA European Under-19 Championship in Northern Ireland due to COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, and nominated five countries to participate in the U-20 World Cup based on the UEFA qualifying round coefficient ranking for the 2019–20 season. Thus, they became the seventh consecutive incumbent title holders to fail to qualify for the subsequent tournament. The COVID-19 pandemic forced FIFA to cancel the 2021 tournament and award the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup hosting rights to Indonesia on 24 December 2020. Host selection The bidding procedure to hots the 2021 FIFA U-20 World Cup was launched by FIFA on 23 April 2019, with the following timeline: 23 April 2019 – FIFA opens bidding process. 21 May 2019 – Deadline for national associations to declare interest of hosting to FIFA. 24 May 2019 – FIFA send bidding and hosting documents to those national associations that have declared an interest. 21 June 2019 – Deadline for national associations to confirm their interest submitting the signed terms and conditions. 30 August 2019 – Deadline for national associations to submit their definitive bids with all signed bidding and hosting documents. 24 October 2019 – Appointment of the host by the FIFA Council. Five bids to host the tournament were submitted per 23 May 2019, which were confirmed in July 2019. On 4 September 2019 there were three active bids under consideration. On 23 October 2019 it was reported that Brazil withdrew their bid due to low winning chances. The next day, Indonesia was announced as the winning bidder after the FIFA Council meeting in Shanghai, China. (AFC) Indonesia had never hosted any FIFA tournament before, however had co-hosted the