The European Under-20 Championship is a competition in women's football for European national teams of players under 19 years of age. It is also a FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup qualifying competition. National under-19 teams whose countries belong to the European governing body UEFA can register to enter the competition.The competition began in the 1997-98 season as an under-18 event; it became an under-19s event from the 2001-02 season. The Championship has 2 phases: the qualifying phase open to all eligible nations, and the finals phase which is composed of 8 qualifying teams. The finals themselves are composed of two groups of four teams; each team plays the others in the group. The winner of each group after the 3 matches plays the runner-up of the opposing group in a semi-final, with the winner contesting the final.