The Afro-Asian Cup of Nations, also called the AFC Asia/Africa Challenge Cup, was an intercontinental

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 ...

competition endorsed by the

Confederation of African Football The Confederation of African Football, or CAF for short (french: link=yes, Confédération Africaine de Football, ar, link=yes, الاتحاد الأفريقي لكرة القدم, al-Ittiḥād al-Afrīqī li-Kurat al-Qadam), is the administ ...

(CAF) and 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 ...

(AFC), contested between representative nations from these confederations, usually the winners of the

Africa Cup of Nations The Africa Cup of Nations referred to as AFCON (french: Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, sometimes referred to as CAN, or TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons), and sometimes as African Cup of Nations, is the main internat ...

and the winners 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 ...

or the

Asian Games The Asian Games, also known as Asiad, is a continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over Asia. The Games were regulated by the Asian Games Federation (AGF) from the first Games in New Delhi, India, until t ...

. All editions were official competitions of CAF and AFC and indirectly also of

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. For FIFA statute, official competitions are those for representative teams organized by FIFA or any confederation. The most successful team is

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

with 2 championships.

History

The first edition in 1978, where Iran defeated Ghana 3-0, the trophy was not awarded: because the second leg was cancelled due to political problems in Iran. The 1989, 2005 editions were cancelled. The 1997 edition was severely delayed to 1999, while the "true" 1999 edition (between Egypt and Iran) was also canceled. The competition was discontinued following a CAF decision on July 30, 2000, after

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representatives had supported Germany rather than South Africa in the vote for hosting the 2006 World Cup. The competition was scheduled to be resumed in 2005 with the match Tunisia-Japan, but then was cancelled. However the trophy was resumed in 2007 under the name "AFC Asia/Africa Challenge Cup". The 2008 edition was scheduled to be played in November 2008 between

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

and

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

in the neutral venue of

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...

but was eventually cancelled.

Results and statistics

Finals

Most successful national teams

Results by confederation

Notes

References

External links

Afro-Asian Cup of Nations
at the

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...

Coupe Afro-asiatique des nation
at Football-the-story.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Afro-Asian Cup of Nations Asian Football Confederation competitions for national teams Confederation of African Football competitions for national teams Recurring sporting events established in 1978