The Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) is an association of the

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 ...

playing nations in

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. In June 2014, the association was in principle approved 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 ...

and approved at the Extraordinary Congress in January 2015 during the

2015 AFC Asian Cup The 2015 AFC Asian Cup was the 16th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It was held in Australia from 9 to 31 January 2015. The tournament was ...

. As a result, CAFA will in the future be able to have member(s) on the AFC executive committee. The formation of CAFA was spearheaded by the

Iranian Football Federation The Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) ( fa, فدراسیون فوتبال جمهوری اسلامی ایران, Federâsion-è Futbâl-è Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Irân) is the governing body of association football in Iran. Formed ...

following disputes with

West Asian Football Federation The West Asian Football Federation (WAFF; ar, اتحاد غرب آسيا لكرة القدم, Ittiḥād Gharb Āsiyā li-Kurat al-Qadam), founded in 2001, is an association of the football playing nations in Western Asia. Its founding members a ...

members. It was reported that AFC President

Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa ( ar, سلمان بن ابراهيم آل خليفة; born 2 November 1965) is a member of the House of Khalifa, the royal family of Bahrain. He has been president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) sin ...

gained politically from the creation of the new zone.

History

Members of the six nations met with AFC president Sheikh Salman on 10 May 2014 to talk about the possibility of creating a new Asian football zone. The delegations were invited by the AFC president following an initiative by

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. At the extraordinary AFC congress on 9 June 2014 in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

, the plan of the new zone was ratified by the congress.

Executive committee

Presidents

Vice-presidents

General Secretaries

AFC Vice-Presidents for Central Zone

Member associations

CAFA consists of six member associations. All of them are members of the

Competitions

Current title holders

CAFA runs several competitions which cover men's, women's, youth and

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

Events by Year

Source:

Events Timeline

* Men * Women

Medals

As of 1 Jan 2023.

Rankings

Men's National Teams

Rankings A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

are calculated by

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 ...

. *Last updated as of 24 April 2022. Leading Men's team: ImageSize = width:150 height:300 PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:5 top:10 DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/2015 till:18/11/2021 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:2015 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy # A line at the right side of the graph LineData = from:01/01/2015 till:end atpos:65 color:black width:0.5 Colors = id:Uzbekistan value:blue id:Iran value:white PlotData= bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,black) align:left fontsize:S from:01/01/2015 till:end shift:(20,-4) text:"

" color:Iran

Women's National Teams

*^* Provisionally listed due to not having played more than five matches against officially ranked teams *^** Inactive for more than 18 months and therefore not ranked *Last updated 12 September 2022. Leading Women's team: ImageSize = width:200 height:200 PlotArea = left:40 right:0 bottom:5 top:10 DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/2015 till:30/11/2021 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:2015 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical format:yyyy Colors = id:Uzbekistan value:blue id:Iran value:white PlotData= bar:Leaders width:25 mark:(line,black) align:left fontsize:S from:01/01/2015 till:07/12/2018 shift:(20,-4) text:"

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...

" color:Uzbekistan from:07/12/2018 till:29/03/2019 shift:(20,-4) text:"

" color:Iran from:01/01/2019 till:end shift:(20,-4) text:"

" color:Uzbekistan

References

External links

Official website
{{CAFA competitions Central Asian Football Association