NEW DELHI: India could get to host another big-ticket football event in the near future. The government has given the All India Football Federation ( AIFF ) the clearance to bid for the FIFA under-17 women’s World Cup in 2020.After the successful staging of the FIFA under-17 men’s World Cup in 2017 across six venues in the country, the AIFF will be bidding for the women’s event at the end of this month, it’s been reliably learnt.An expression of interest has already been submitted by the AIFF to the sport’s world governing body. The FIFA guidelines earlier said that once the bid was submitted, the organising national federation needed to obtain necessary guarantees from its union government for the FIFA to give its go-ahead for the tournament.Now, the FIFA requires the interested federation to obtain a ‘no-objection certificate’ from its government beforehand, which is to be submitted with the bid document, apart from all other necessary guarantees once the bid is successful.This go-ahead is a huge boost for the AIFF but financial hurdles remain. The government has refused to commit itself to the AIFF’s demand to earmark a financial grant of Rs 50 crore for the tournament, the amount of which is meant to be spent on the upgradation of existing infrastructure.The AIFF wanted a guarantee from the government that it will get a grant of Rs 50 crore if India’s bid is successful. However, the government’s view is that it will take a call after the AIFF submits a blueprint on the financial component and under which heads the federation wants to spend the money.“The sports ministry has given a no-objection certificate to the AIFF which it had been asking for. They said it’s a prerequisite thing to be submitted with the bid document, so the government has given them the document,” sports secretary Rahul Bhatnagar told TOI.“However, we haven’t committed to Rs 50 crore which they had been demanding from the government. Let them first submit the proposal as to how exactly they want to spend the money, and we will positively have a look at it,” Bhatnagar added.The ministry is of the view that since India hosted the men’s under-17 World Cup recently, it has the infrastructure ready and in proper shape. “So, there’s not much money needed to carry out the developmental work,” a ministry source added.The AIFF is hopeful that once the bid document is successfully submitted, it will be able to convince the ministry to clear the grant.According to the proposed document, the World Cup will be played between 16 teams and the AIFF plans to hold it across four venues, including the national capital. For the under-17 men’s World Cup, the government had spent more than Rs 100 crore, excluding the organisational cost borne by the FIFA, which amounted to an additional Rs 80-85 crore.