The 2023 AFC Asian Cup will be the 18th edition of the

AFC Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second oldest cont ...

, the quadrennial international men's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

championship of Asia organised by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the 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 ...

(AFC). It will involve 24 national teams after expansion in

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, with

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...

as the defending champions. The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in China from 16 June to 16 July 2023. On 14 May 2022, the AFC announced that China would not host the tournament due to the circumstances caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and China's Zero-COVID policy. On 17 October, the AFC announced that the tournament will be held in Qatar. Qatar will become the first country to host three Asian Cups, after

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

and

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. Due to the high summer temperatures in the

Gulf region The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body ...

, the tournament will probably be postponed from mid-2023 to early 2024.

Host selection

China was announced as the winning bid on 4 June 2019, on the eve of the 69th FIFA Congress in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, France. However, due to China's relinquishment of its hosting rights, the AFC conducted a second round of bidding, with a deadline for submissions scheduled on 17 October 2022. Four nations had submitted bids: Australia, Indonesia, Qatar and South Korea, but Australia subsequently withdrew in September 2022 and Indonesia on 15 October. On 17 October, the AFC announced that Qatar won the bid and will host the tournament.

Teams

The first two rounds of qualification also served as the Asian qualification for the World Cup.

participated only in the second round solely for qualification for the 2023 Asian Cup. They had qualified automatically for the World Cup as host nation.

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

too participated only in the second round. They had initially qualified automatically for the Asian Cup as host nation.

Timor-Leste East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

were barred from participating in the qualification tournament. The team was found to have fielded a total of twelve ineligible players in

2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification The 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification was the qualification process organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to determine the participating teams for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, the 17th edition of the international men's football champions ...

matches, among other competitions. However, as

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

did not bar them from the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, Timor-Leste were still allowed to enter the competition, but were ineligible to qualify for the Asian Cup. Qualifying began on 6 June 2019 for 23 spots joining the then-chosen host nation China.

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

withdrew from the qualifying round due to safety concerns related to the

Qualified teams

Draw

Group stage

''All times are local, AST (

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be wri ...

).''

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Ranking of third-placed teams

The four best third-placed teams from the six groups advance to the knockout stage along with the six group winners and six runners-up.

Notes

References

External links

* , the-AFC.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Afc Asian Cup 2023

2023 Events Predicted and scheduled events * January 1 ** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1927 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law. ** Croatia will adopt the eu ...

2023 in Asian football 2022–23 in Qatari football

June 2023 sports events in Asia July 2023 sports events in Asia Sports events affected by the COVID-19 pandemic Scheduled association football competitions Events in 2023