Dynamics of the preparation for the World Qualifier of the national football team
According to AFC's notice on July 2, member associations participating in the Qatar World Qualifying Tournament Stage 3 and the 12-team tournament must submit a plan for the organization of home matches before July 16, and submit a plan for "(third-party) alternative home matches" in response to possible accidents brought about by changes in the epidemic situation. As of the afternoon of July 16, the CFA has not yet submitted plans. It is reported that, according to the CFA and the national team's plan, the 12 strong home for the first choice of Shanghai, and "alternative home" has not been determined. At present, the CFA 12 tournament preparations for the work of the security team is grasping the implementation of the plan.
After the results of the draw for the 12-team tournament were released on July 1, the participating member associations and teams have been engaged in intense preparations for the tournament. Among the various tasks, the first task is to formulate a plan for the home tournament, in which the organization of the home tournament venue is particularly critical.
From the point of view of FIFA, AFC focus on "care" sponsors' interests, the whole 12 strong tournament using home and away match system is almost a foregone conclusion. At present, the participating member associations of the state of the epidemic situation and the laws of each country, epidemic prevention policies vary, but FIFA, the AFC on its sponsorship of all kinds of major tournaments introduced a strict "away team personnel isolation period". In other words, if this period conflicts with the epidemic prevention and quarantine rules of the participating member associations, FIFA and AFC may, in accordance with the rules of the industry, require the member association to which the home team belongs to select a venue in a third-party country (region) as the team's alternative home ground.
As the 12-team tournament will start at the beginning of September, in order to properly complete the preparations for the tournament, the AFC requires member associations to submit their home game plans and "alternative home" programs within 2 weeks after the notification, i.e., by the 16th at the latest.
In fact, from June 17, the United Arab Emirates returned to the country, the Chinese Football Association and the national team coaches, management team will begin to start the preparation work for the 12 strong match. At the beginning of this month, the national team of the Football Association to prepare for the 12 strong work security team members have begun to "inspect" the home alternative venues, and their goal is to inspect the Shanghai part of the game, training venues and hotels.
As of July 16, the national team's preferred home alternative venue for the 12-team tournament remains Shanghai.
As for the reason for choosing Shanghai, it is actually not complicated. On the one hand, the entry and exit places for all the relevant personnel of our women's soccer team for the 2nd round of the Olympic play-offs and the national team's Top 40 matches are Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Therefore, once the national team will be the 12 strong home stadium in Shanghai, then the home and away team delegation and the AFC tournament officials in the entry and exit procedures can be fully referenced to the previous China's women's football, men's football related procedures. In addition, the city of Shanghai has also accumulated successful experience in cooperating with the entry and exit of our women's and men's soccer players and in creating a closed loop of epidemic prevention for the tournament. These experiences can also be used to improve the efficiency of the national team's reception and epidemic prevention work.
From the current situation, this year's newly completed SAIC Pudong Stadium is likely to become the first candidate for the national team's 12 strong home games venue. In addition, the Yuan Shen Stadium, which once hosted a Chinese Super League competition, is also likely to become the team's alternative training venue.
It is reported that the CFA national team 12 strong match preparation work security team members recently also specially examined the Shanghai part of the hotel, which also specially for the visiting team in the Pudong New Area examined part of the hotel. From this it is not difficult to judge, if the final national team 12 home can be located in Shanghai, then the game place and the activities of the visiting team area probability will be concentrated in the Pudong New Area, which in fact is also in order to better implementation of the tournament epidemic prevention work.
SAIC Pudong Stadium
Compared to the local home venue candidates, the selection of third-party "alternative home" venues is a headache for a significant portion of the participating member associations of the 12-team tournament, including the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
As of now, the national team's group rivals, Australia, have not been able to confirm that they will be able to play their home matches in their home country. The Japan Football Association (JFA) has previously indicated that it would like to organize home matches in the Kansai region of the country. However, as the host of this year's Summer Olympics, Japan has also recently experienced a significant epidemic, which has brought uncertainty to the organization of the Japanese team's home field.
Japan men's soccer team preparing for the 12th round of the tournament
The CFA is full of confidence in the hardware conditions and management and service capabilities of the candidate venues, but due to the national team's 12 strong competition home and away repeated cross, involving more complex issues of entry and exit of personnel, and now China is still implementing a more stringent epidemic prevention and quarantine of personnel entering the country, so the team will be able to wish to compete in the country, but also is still unknown. As for the selection of the third party "alternative home field", also need to depend on the relevant member associations of the country's laws, epidemic prevention rules and conditions of the game. Logically, even if the national team is unable to play a home game in China, the third-party "alternative home" will be organized in the member countries of the opponents of the same group of non-national teams. For example, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar are possible candidates.
