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The drama surrounding the 2023 Asian Cup continues with today’s near confirmation that the tournament will be pushed back to January 2024.
The decision was widely rumored with QFA spokesman, Ali Al Salat, telling Reuters that a request to host the tournament from January 24th, 2024 onward was lodged with the Asian Football Confederation. Today’s announcement that Qatar would once again participate as a guest nation at the 2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup all but seals the tourney’s fate.
Qatar won the rights to host the tournament after original hosts China pulled out due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. The Asian Football Confederation wanted to host the draw for the finals in the host country and the fact that the Chinese government was unwilling to issue travel waivers that would have allowed AFC officials to skip quarantine brought the decision to a head.
A re-bidding process was launched and it was assumed that Korea- who had not hosted a tournament since 1960- was a presumed favorite. This was due to the fact that Korea were the original runners-up to China’s bid and the long standing tradition of alternating tournaments between East and West.
Qatar, Indonesia, and Australia also expressed interest with the latter withdrawing to focus on hosting the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Qatar’s World Cup facilities made it a serious contender but the oppressive summer heat seemed to rule it out.
The assumptions were proved wrong eleven days ago when Qatar was awarded hosting rights.
The decision is even more bizarre when taken in context; Korea was ready and willing to host during the originally scheduled dates. The AFC also took the decision to condense qualifying from six matches to three and do away with the home/away format citing COVID-19 and a lack of FIFA match days. Now that the tournament is set to be delayed- the reality is that there was ample time to organize qualifying over the upcoming windows.
Qatar will make a great host but the lack of transparency in the decision making process is bewildering. It also costs several nations the opportunity to move up the FIFA Rankings ahead of a new qualifying cycle. The decision will likely lock Palestine into Pot 2 for World Cup 2026/Asian Cup 2027 qualifiers along with the three teams just below them- Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, and Lebanon. India will be a Pot 3 team and 2023 Asian Cup finalists Indonesia will be amongst 20 teams in Round 1 who will contest a home and away playoff to round out a group stage that includes 36 teams in nine groups of four.
A winter Asian Cup will also mean a tug-of-war for the services of several Europe based stars. In 2019, Philippines Goalkeeper Neil Etheridge did not participate in the tournament at all and Son Heung-Min missed Korea’s first two games of UAE 2019.
