Initially, South Africa was announced to participate in the tournament but Kenya later replaced them when South Africa expressed its inability to participate.[4] The other two nations participated in the tournament were Chinese Taipei from AFC region and New Zealand from the OFC region.[2]
After a poor attendance of 2,569 for the first match of the tournament, Indian captain Sunil Chhetri uploaded a video[7] on his Twitter and Instagram accounts pleading for Indians to attend Indian football matches.[8] Chhetri's plea was endorsed by other sports people, including Indian cricket captainVirat Kohli, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, and tennis player Sania Mirza.[9] People responded to the plea by booking tickets for India's upcoming game against Kenya, and the game was sold out before the match day.[10] The match was Chhetri's 100th cap for India in which he scored a brace, leading India to win 3–0. The tweet was the most retweeted tweet in 2018, per Twitter India and was awarded The Golden Tweet.[11]