KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — With the World Cup in Qatar simply weeks away, the nation was chosen Monday as host of the 2023 Asian Cup by the Asian Soccer Confederation.
Qatar beat bids from South Korea and Indonesia in a short-notice contest to switch China and host a match that might but be performed in 2024.
The 2023 Asian Cup is ready within the FIFA-managed calendar of national-team soccer video games to be performed from June 16 to July 16 — when the desert warmth in Qatar is so excessive that the World Cup needed to be moved to November and December.
Qatar hosted the 2011 Asian Cup in January that 12 months and now turns into the primary nation to host the continental championship 3 times after additionally staging the occasion in 1988.
The Qatari males’s staff can be aiming to defend the title it received in 2019 within the United Arab Emirates.
China was initially scheduled to carry the 24-team occasion in 2023 however gave up internet hosting rights in Might due to the nation’s “Zero-COVID” insurance policies to comprise the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the AFC in search of replacements.
“Given the quick lead time in preparation, we all know that the exhausting work begins instantly however with their present world-class infrastructure and unequalled internet hosting capabilities, we’re assured that Qatar will stage a worthy spectacle befitting the status and stature of Asia’s crown jewel,” AFC President Sheik Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa mentioned in an announcement.
Qatar’s win Monday supplied excellent news for neighboring Saudi Arabia which is bidding to host the 2027 Asian Cup, in a contest that’s now a two-bid race with India.
That 2027 contest initially included Qatar and Iran, whose soccer federation withdrew its candidacy final Thursday, the AFC mentioned. No motive was cited, though Iran has skilled a month of road protests in help of girls’s rights after the loss of life in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini,
“Within the All India Soccer Federation and the Saudi Arabian Soccer Federation, now we have two exemplary bids,” Sheik Salman mentioned.
The AFC might want to search FIFA settlement and certain a choice from the game’s world physique’s ruling Council to amend the worldwide match calendar and discover new dates for the 2023 Asian Cup.
That course of might increase pressure with European golf equipment which generally object to soccer’s continental championships being moved to their midseason from June slots.
The FIFA calendar mandates the sport dates and match durations when golf equipment should launch their gamers who’ve been chosen for nationwide groups.
Nevertheless, fewer Europe-based gamers are wanted for the Asian Cup than needed to depart their golf equipment for the African Cup of Nations that was performed in Cameroon in January. That match additionally was moved from an supposed slot in June.
The influential European Membership Affiliation is led by a Qatari who’s an in depth good friend of the nation’s Emir. The Switzerland-based membership group’s chairman is Nasser al-Khelaifi, the president of Paris Saint-Germain.
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