Should AFC well Asia have its own Nations League? I mean UEFA has one with their national teams and CONCACAF has one but I wonder if Asia should start its own Nations League? It would not only help with Asian Cup qualifying but also FIFA World Cup qualifying too in the future especially out of the Asian region.
Well, having seen how well the UEFA Nations League worked out, I wouldn't mind seeing the AFC do a Nations League in the future.
I would too especially if it puts Asian teams in a better position rankings wise as well as helps them to better qualify for Asian Cup and World Cup as well
It would mean a major change to the Asian calendar as the current system which combines world and Asian Cup qualification takes 24 match days to complete, 26 if you count the international playoff. For this world cup it started on June 6 2019 and the Asian part was scheduled to finish on Nov 16 2021 before Covid 19 interrupted things. I think it could be a good idea but it would need major changes to how we do things.
Yeah plus with a Nations League here in Asia, it ends up being more competitive and then it can help further advance the Asian game
The current system gives a lot of competitive games to the majority of teams. The bottom 12 teams in rankings have a 2 leg playoff. The winners go on to the next round where they get 8 more competitive matches, the losers go on the Solidarity Cup, which will be a 10 team tournament with at least 4 matches. After the group stage the top 12 go to world cup qualifying where they have another 10 matches, with two of them getting an additional 2 matches and one of those getting 2 on top of that (we did that last time playing 22 games to qualify for Russia). The next 16 teams go to Asian Qualifying group stage where they get another six matches. The remaining teams have another playoff round (2-4 matches) where 8 of them go to the group stage, and 4 to the solidarity cup. The least amount of competitive matches a nation can play is 6 (the bottom 6 nations). The most is 24 (if a team from the bottom 12 goes all the way to the intercontinental playoff). A middle ranked team will play a minimum of 16 (both group stages). There aren't a lot of extra dates available for a nations league, and there are plenty of competitive games for nations at all levels. All but the bottom 6 get to play against one of the top 8 ranked teams in the first group stage, then there is another group stage where the top 12 play each other and the next 24 play each other, with another tournament for the bottom ranked 10. The current system does a very good job of providing competitive matches with room for some preparation friendlies for those that qualify for major tournaments.
AFC is too lazy to reshuffle schedule and make a new one. With this pandemic things, AFC NL unlikely to happen for the time being
For nations league in Asia, AFC might cancel existing format including #ACQ & make the nations league as a qualifying stage for the Asian Cup as what Concacaf did. Actually the format of nations league is quite suitable to used in Asia. We might see some smaller nations gain promoted to big league (Top 10 AFC), and this give much opportunities & experience for those nations. But if AFC make our own Nations League, 5 subsidiaries might stop their sub-continental tournaments. Asean find it very hard not to watch AFF Suzuki Cup every two years
Plus with an AFC Nations League you make more money and it does wonders for FIFA World Cup rankings especially if you are in the AFC region
What make Nations League still not a good idea for AFC is the geographical area. Fans wish to see a match between Japan & Iran or Philippines vs Bahrain, but the travel cost really putting this one into another perspective.
From a strictly competitive standpoint, yes it would be a good competition especially for the lower tier countries (in UEFA its allowed the micro-states a chance to not just be a punching bag for much larger countries in qualifying). Although from a financial standpoint Asia is much larger, less interconnected and expensive for travel. I don't know if there would be a TV deal large enough to make it worth having Mongolia travel to play Bahrain for example.