2019 AFC Asian Cup

2019 AFC Asian Cup
كأس آسيا 2019

Bid logo
Tournament details
Host country  United Arab Emirates
Dates TBC
Teams 24 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s) 6 (in 3 host cities)

The 2019 AFC Asian Cup will be the 17th edition of the AFC Asian Cup, an international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The United Arab Emirates was announced as the host for the tournament on 9 March 2015, with Iran was the only remaining bidder for the right to host the 2019 finals.[1] It will be the second time that the United Arab Emirates hosts the tournament after the 1996 finals.

For the first time, the Asian Cup final tournament will be contested by 24 teams, having been expanded from the 16-team format that had been used since 2004.[2] Under this new format, the finalists will contest a group stage consisting of six groups of four teams, followed by a knockout stage of 16 teams. The host nation will automatically qualify for the final tournament, while the remaining 23 places will be determined among the other 45 national teams through a qualifying competition, running from March 2015 to March 2018, in which the first two rounds also serve as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process for the AFC.

Australia will be the defending champions going into the tournament, having won the previous competition in 2015. The winner of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup will earn the right to participate in the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup which is to be hosted by a yet to be determined AFC association after 2022 FIFA World Cup hosts, Qatar, lost the rights.[3] As the 2021 Confederations Cup host country will have already qualified as hosts, if they win, the runner-up will qualify.

Host selection

The bidding procedure and timeline for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup was approved at the AFC congress on 28 November 2012.[4] The winning bid was originally set to be announced at an AFC congress in June, then November of 2014.[5] However, at its 60th Anniversary celebrations at the end of 2014, AFC gave the date of 'summer 2015' to when an announcement would be made.[6]

In January 2015, AFC general secretary Alex Soosay said that Iran and the United Arab Emirates were the only two remaining bidders for the 2019 Asian Cup, and that the eventual hosts would be announced in March 2015.[1]

On 9 March 2015, AFC announced the hosts during a AFC Executive Committee meeting in Manama, Bahrain.[7]

Qualification

The 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification process will determine the 24 participating teams for the tournament. In 2014, a proposal to merge the preliminary qualification rounds of the FIFA World Cup with those of the AFC Asian Cup was ratified by the AFC Competitions Committee.[2] The new qualification structure will take place in three stages, with the first two merging with the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification.[2] In the first round, the lowest ranked teams will play home-and-away over two legs to reduce the total number of teams to 40. In the second round, the 40 teams will be divided into eight groups of five to play home-and-away round-robin matches, where the eight group winners and the four best group runners-up will qualify for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals. In the third round, the next best 24 teams eliminated from second round will be divided into six groups of four and compete for the remaining slots of the 2019 AFC Asian Cup.[8]

The first qualifying round of the qualification will take place on 12 March 2015, with the final match of the third round expected to take place on 27 March 2018.[9][10]

Qualified teams

The following teams qualified for the tournament.

Team Qualified as Qualified on Previous appearances in tournament1
 United Arab Emirates Hosts 9 March 2015 9 (1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2007, 2011, 2015)
1 Bold indicates champion for that year. Italic indicates host for that year.

Venues

The nominated stadiums are Mohammed Bin Zayed Stadium and Zayed Sports City Stadium in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa International Stadium and Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain, Dubai International Cricket Stadium, and a new stadium to be built by 2018, which would be located in Dubai.[11]

Abu Dhabi Dubai Abu Dhabi
Zayed Sports City Stadium DSC Stadium Al Jazira Stadium
Capacity: 63,578
(upgraded)		 Capacity: 60,500
(new stadium)		 Capacity: 42,056
(upgraded)
Al Ain Dubai Al Ain
Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium Al Ahli Stadium Sheikh Khalifa Stadium
Capacity: 25,965 Capacity: 25,132
(new stadium)		 Capacity: 20,174
(upgraded)

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Asian Cup: Australia backed as future World Cup host by AFC general secretary". abc.net.au. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "ExCo approves expanded AFC Asian Cup finals". AFC. 16 April 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "FIFA will move 2021 Confederations Cup from Qatar to different Asian country". mlssoccer.com. Retrieved 27 February 2015.
  4. ↑ "Maldives to host 2014 AFC Challenge Cup". AFC. 28 November 2012. Retrieved 3 January 2013.
  5. ↑ "New 60,000 stadium to be built in Dubai Sports City as part of 2019 Asian Cup bid". Arabian Industry.com. 2014-03-11. Retrieved 2014-03-27.
  6. ↑ "Decision on next Asian Cup hosts unlikely before mid-2015". Yahoo! Eurosport UK. 2014-11-29.
  7. ↑ "United Arab Emirates to host 2019 AFC Asian Cup". the-afc.com. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
  8. ↑ "AFC Competitions Committee meeting". Asian Football Confederation. 2014-11-28. Retrieved 2014-11-30.
  9. ↑ "AFC Calendar of Competitions 2015" (PDF). AFC.
  10. ↑ "AFC Calendar of Competitions 2016 - 2018" (PDF). AFC.
  11. ↑ Prashant, N.D. (10 March 2014). "UAE bids to hold 2019 AFC Asian Cup". Gulf News. Retrieved 27 January 2015.

External links