AFC push out 2023 Asian Cup bids deadline

Article posted by Coliseum, June 29^th, 2022

Image: The AFC

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has extended its deadline to receive bids for staging the 2023 Asian Cup following China’s decision to relinquish its hosting rights.

The ‘7NEWS’ stated that interested parties must now confirm their bid by July 15^th, the AFC said in a statement, having previously set a June 30^th deadline after inviting bids for the championship last month.

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)-based the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is a governing body of association football, beach soccer and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member-countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly in OFC, joined AFC in 2006.

The 2023 AFC Asian Cup will be the 18^th edition of the AFC Asian Cup, the quadrennial international men’s football championship of Asia organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It will be held from June 16^th to July 16^th, 2023. The tournament will involve 24 national teams after its expansion of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, including that of the host nation. Qatar is the defending champions.

The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in China. However, on May 14^th, 2022, the AFC announced that China would not be able to host the tournament due to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which recently had the country in its throes again and China’s zero-COVID policy.

China was set to host the 24-team tournament in June and July next year but the country’s strict COVID-19 policy resulted in the event being moved.

The ‘7NEWS’ further stated that South Korea’s football association confirmed recently that it will launch a bid to host the event while Japan said in May it had been informally approached about the possibility of replacing China as hosts.

Football Australia said last week it was also weighing up a possible bid.

If Australia did bid successfully, the Asian Cup, which is scheduled to start on June 16th next year, would finish just before the country hosts the Women’s World Cup which is set to start on July 20^th.

The Socceroos (Australia national football team) famously claimed a first Asian Cup title when Australia hosted the tournament in 2015.

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