New plans for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup

The Executive Office of the AFC decided to hold the final round of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers with a one-round pool system.

The Executive Office of the Asian Football Confederation decided to hold the final round of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers with a one-round pool system, instead of the previous system, which included home and away matches.

The AFC stated on its website that the Executive Office took this decision after taking into account the current challenges posed by the emerging Corona virus pandemic, with priority given to the health and safety of all concerned parties before the finals of the tournament to be held in China during the period from the sixteenth of June until the sixth The tenth of July 2023.

It was agreed to hold competitions for each group of three rounds on the eighth, eleventh and fourteenth of June 2022, and the opening of applications for hosting group qualifiers matches for all participating national federations will be announced in due course.

A set of requirements will be developed in order to host the qualifying matches, in a similar way to submitting requests to host the tournaments in the pool system for the year 2021, in order to ensure the implementation of the best health and safety standards and protocols.

These criteria include the application of minimum travel and quarantine restrictions for all participating teams, the ease of flights to the host country, the health situation in the host country, the availability of sufficient stadiums in order to host matches, and the most important thing is the mandatory application of Corona examination for all players and officials upon their arrival in the country. And during the competition period under the supervision of the officials to combat the spread of the disease in the Asian Football Confederation.

The new program of matches may be modified when needed, according to the amendments to the instructions of the Federation Championships.

After the Asian Cup 2023 qualifiers were held in China earlier this month, Indonesia and Cambodia got the last two tickets that qualified for the final round, after 22 teams got their seats in the final round through the Asian qualifiers.