KUALA LUMPUR - The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have decided to cancel a few competitions this year to safeguard the interests of all stakeholders, especially the safety and health of Asia's youth players, due to the uncertainty and risks involved in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is also in line with world football governing body FIFA’s decision to cancel their Under-17 and Under-20 World Cup tournaments this year.
Among the AFC competitions that have been cancelled are the Under-16 and Under-19 championships scheduled to be held in Bahrain and Uzbekistan, respectively.
Bahrain and Uzbekistan will now host the 2023 editions of both these championships. At the same time, Bahrain will also host the AFC U-17 Asian Cup and Uzbekistan the AFC U-20 Asian Cup in 2023.
The AFC have also decided to cancel the 2020 AFC Futsal Championship in Kuwait and the 2021 AFC Beach Soccer Asian Cup in Thailand.
Both the Kuwait Football Association and the Football Association of Thailand will host the next editions of the two tournaments in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
“We are grateful for the support of the hosts for these competitions, who agreed with the AFC on the need to safeguard the interests of all stakeholders during this time of uncertainty and taking into consideration the risks of the current pandemic,” AFC secretary-general Datuk Windsor John Paul said in a statement.
The AFC have also rescheduled the qualifying rounds for the AFC U-20 Women’s Asian Cup 2022 and AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup 2022.
The first round of the Under-20 qualifiers has been moved from March to Aug 14-22 and the second round of the qualifiers from August to November 3-7.
The first round of the Under-17 qualifiers has been switched from April to Sept 18-26 and the second round of qualifiers from September to December 8-12. – Bernama, January 26, 2021.
