Muscat: In order to provide more number of international matches to Member Associations, the AFC Competitions Committee has decided to revamp the confederation’s national team competitions. The committee, which met on the sidelines of the AFC U-22 Championship on Saturday, also decided to simplify the assessment criteria for participation in AFC club competitions. Addressing the committee members, AFC President Shaikh Salman Ebrahim Al Khalifa urged the Member Associations to adhere the changes that are proposed in the meeting. “Competitions are the main products of AFC and I am happy that it is in the good hands,” said AFC President. “We must market our product and generate income to sustain football across the continent. “I am sure that the changes that happen will have big impact in Asian football and will benefit our Member Associations,” he added. Under the new format, Asia’s showpiece event – AFC Asian Cup – will have 24 teams in the tournament proper instead of 16. The 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, to be held in Maldives in May this year, will be the last edition of this competition. Furthermore, the qualification rounds for FIFA World Cup qualifiers and AFC Asian Cup qualifiers will be merged for the preliminary round. Depending on the number of entries, the Member Associations will be divided into eight groups after preliminary stages. The eight group winners and four second best teams will qualify for the FIFA World Cup final round of qualifiers and also the AFC Asian Cup finals. Presently, only ten teams battle it out in the final round of FIFA World Cup qualifiers. The second and third-placed teams from the preliminary qualification round (24 teams) will compete for the remaining slots in the AFC Asian Cup finals in six groups of four teams each. The final round of FIFA World Cup qualifiers and AFC Asian Cup qualifiers will be separated. Looking at the growing interest of MAs to participate in the next tier of AFC’s club competitions, the assessment criteria has been simplified. The committee decided to rank the Member Associations based on their national teams and clubs’ performance over last four years in AFC competitions. Thirty per cent of points will be allocated for national teams’ performances while seventy per cent for the clubs’ showings. Upon confirmation of the rankings, the MAs ranked 1 to 24 will be eligible to receive direct slots in the AFC Champions League. Apart from being in the top 24, the MAs will have fulfil club licensing criteria, have integrity programmes within the MA, organisation of professional league and its governance, facilities as required in the regulations and sound supporting system for logistical matters. The MAs ranked 25 to 32 will be eligible to participate in AFC Cup group stage while MAs ranked 33 to 47 will be provided with an opportunity to play in AFC Cup playoff stage. The assessment will be carried out in 2014 and will be applied for 2015 and 2016 while the assessment of 2016 will be applied for 2017 to 2020. All decisions of this committee need to be ratified by the AFC Executive Committee to take effect. http://www.the-afc.com/en/about-afc...ivision/27547-revamp-of-afc-competitions.html
Finally some progress. I particularly like the idea of merging the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers, it's certainly much better than the current format. It evens out the playing field a bit, with the so-called minnows getting the chance to come up against the giants on a more regular basis. Let's get rid of this stupid caste system AFC currently has in place.
So the current AFC Asian Cup 2015 still with the 16-teams format or extended to 24 teams? Its critical for Iraq and China as well for other countries competing in the current qualification system.
I don't know... you going to have a nation like Macau go from playing 4 qualification games on two fronts to playing 2 qualification games. It's much better for the teams that win their Preliminary tie but the losers go into wilderness for years. Also expanding the finals, I don't know why, AFC are only adding 8 more teams that are currently struggling in the current qualification process. AFC's top tier competition in my opinion doesn't need expanding, they need to work on the middle tier which they've never done, and looks like they never will. The bottom tier's arse has just come off aswell. What's the point in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia even bother entering any dual qualification process. International wilderness for decades for such nations. I know they will never make a World Cup but and it's upto them not to enter, but they need that competition kicking around for themselves still. Are AFC just expecting EAFF, ASEAN, SAFF competitions to do all the work for them?
This is not what they do in other continental federations. They should have kept the World Cup and Asian Cup preliminary qualifiers separate, to give the emerging nations more games. This will basically reduce the number of games they play every 4 cycle by half for these nations.
24 teams out of 47 into the finals, then only 8 teams eliminated after the group play? Total bull imo, just to ensure the big guns don't miss out ever....
Must admit, I didn't think of it this way at first. Also expanding the number of teams in the AFC Asian Cup is a no-no for me.
If AFC want to do this, then the nos of teams in each grp for the preliminary round should be 5 teams like CAF. It will mean 40 teams & min 8 games for most teams & only 6 teams lost out
If 8 x 4 teams play in group stage, 12 teams qualify to WCQ final round & Asian Cup finals and 20 teams are out only. There are not enough teams (24) for the ACQ Final Round. So, I guess there should be 8 x 5 teams playing in group stage. 7 teams are eliminated before GS at most.
Some teams may not even enter the tournament. I am wondering how they rank the national teams. Is it based on FIFA ranking, past performance or some other criteria?
Sustained competitions allow MAs to employ full time coaching staff and give players more exposure and maybe even income. That's one thing the AFC people never learn. One only needs to look at CONMEBOL to see how their marathon World Cup qualification process has helped countries like Venezuela etc. AFC don't give a damn what happens to the small nations. They are like the Chinese New Year relatives that one have. One only calls/meets them once during Chinese New Year. One gives them the smallest red packet possible and expects them to show plenty of gratitude. Then no more until next year.
Therefore the changes aren't final yet. Hopefully the ExCo has a some sense and makes further changes to this merged qualification and 24 team Asian Cup nonsense, but I'm not holding my breath really. No. NMI aren't full AFC members therefore can't enter.
If there are going to be 8 groups of 4 teams*, that means 32 teams will play group stage -> 12 teams more than played in last WCQ cycle first group stage (5 groups of 4). So, 12 more teams will play six official WC qualifying games. That's HUGE PLUS. Teams that don't qualify to last round (24 teams!) will play another group stage (AFC cup qualification round) and that means they will play additional six games in at least year and a half. Another HUGE PLUS. Basically, every team that enter first WCQ group stage will have (at least) 12 official games in 2-3 years period. That's awesome news for some minor FAs that (with current competitions setup) don't play as much as they should. I (European fan of Asian football) am very excited about this and I am looking forward to see it official. * - if 24 teams enter main AFC Cup quals and 12 teams enter main WC quals, that means there are 36 teams in combined group stage - there might be 9 groups of 4 teams ?
So, can someone just to a quick summary of how exactly will it work (combining the WCQ and ACQ) and getting the number of nations down to group stage etc.. 47 nations (inc Northern Mariana).....so how will it work?
If 47 start (I'll use 9 groups of 4 teams as 8 groups of 4 doesn't make sense) Preliminary round 22 teams play two-legged match winners go through Group stage 36 teams (11 winners + 25 best ranked) play in 9 groups of 4 12 teams (9 group winners and 3 best second-placed teams) qualify to WC qualification round and win AFC Cup berth 24 teams (remaining teams) qualify to AFC Cup qualification round World Cup qualification 12 teams, format unknown (2 groups of 6 OR 3 groups of 4) AFC Cup qualification (played simultaneously with World Cup qualification) 24 teams play in 6 groups of 4 top two teams win AFC Cup berth
Seems to be a really good qualification campaign. so we are looking at about 11 teams to be in wilderness for 4 years.... some teams might be unfortunate to be eliminated due to the draw... but others will be out as per norm (Cambodia, Guam, Brunei, Bhutan etc)
FIFA requires World Cup qualifying seeding to use the FIFA Rankings, so a group stage that simultaneously is part of World Cup and AFC Cup qualification would use the FIFA Rankings. AFC is the only confederations that goes continental qualifying-World Cup-continental tournament. Every other confederational tournament played between World Cup 2014 and World Cup 2018 (with the possible exception of some islands in CONCACAF qualifying for Gold Cup 2015) doesn't start confederational tournament qualifying until after World Cup 2014. 3 groups of 4 would present a decision about how the playoffs work if AFC continues to have 4.5 spots in the World Cup. Two second place teams would play each other and one second place team would go to the interconfederational playoff. Which second place teams goes to the interconfederational playoff could be determined at the World Cup qualifying draw. Alternatively, the second place team with the most points could be rewarded with the choice of opponent between the other two second place teams and the team from whatever confederation AFC is drawn against.
the current fifa rankings have the bottom 22 nations. In that list, there are some bigger teams in there such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Yemen...... and would also see the likes of Afghanistan, Palestine, Philippines, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan through to the group stage. It goes to show that sometimes, always playing bigger nations (and losing) makes you drop in the FIFA rankings.. 25 Vietnam 26 Kyrgyzstan 27 Thailand 28 Singapore 29 Laos 30 Malaysia 31 India 32 Indonesia 33 Guam 34 Maldives 35 Bangladesh 36 Chinese Taipei 37 Sri Lanka 38 Nepal 39 Pakistan 40 Yemen 41 Mongolia 42 Cambodia 43 Brunei Darussalam 44 Timor-Leste 45 Macau 46 Bhutan
20 official game dates, every team splt in group of 6, the best 12 go the play in 2 other group of 6 for the FIFAWCQ, the teams 13° to 36° go to 4 group of 6 to qualifi to the final 12 spot of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup; still time for friendlies, Aniway, I guess the AFC is doing a better work that the Asias baskeball or baseball federation.
The 11 teams that get eliminated here, bye bye and see you in 4 years. At least AFC should try to get these 11 teams and NMI together for some kind of competition (AFC Challenge Cup?) to keep them interested. You don't need to give them any place in any big tournament, just get them to play some football and award a trophy.
That was actually the whole idea behind the AFC Challenge Cup, but then AFC turned it into a money making scheme when they realized India's potential...