On July 1, the AFC welcomed a key Qatar World Qualification Asian Zone draw in Kuala Lumpur. For this tournament, the biggest challenge facing the AFC is not the tournament itself, but how to determine the complex system. Although three years ago the AFC had initially planned the flow of this stage of the tournament and the home-and-away system, the impact of the world epidemic has made it doubtful whether this system is applicable to the current 12-team tournament. The tournament organizer is the World Football Confederation (WFC), and any adjustments to the system by the AFC will need to be approved by the WFC Council.
The Chinese team experienced an isolation investigation during last week's Top 40 campaign, but it was not an isolated phenomenon. Of the eight group matches in the 40-team tournament, six, including China's Group A, were played in West Asia, with the exception of Japan and South Korea, which hosted two group matches each. Currently, there are differences in defense measures or rules between countries (regions). Taking the teams participating in the 12-team tournament as an example, teams from West Asia such as UAE, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Oman and Iraq basically do not need to be quarantined after the matches. The Omani and Lebanese teams are also scheduled to travel to Doha, Qatar, at the end of this year to participate in the Arab Cup qualifying tournament.
However, the situation is different for the teams representing the member associations of the AFC East Asia Region. The South Korean and Japanese teams will not affect the normal restart of their home leagues due to their participation in the 40-team tournament in their home countries, and the teams from both countries participating in the AFC Champions League have already embarked on their journeys. Australia's team is out of Kuwait's Top 40 field and its homegrown players will need to be quarantined when they return home. Vietnam will also be required to undergo quarantine after returning home to Ho Chi Minh City from the 40-team tournament, but the specific quarantine period is different from that of the Chinese men's soccer team.
Under the continuing impact of the global epidemic, countries (regions) are likely to continue to be cautious and stringent in enforcing the rules on epidemic prevention and quarantine in the coming period. In the case of the South Korean women's soccer team, they had traveled to Suzhou, China, in April to participate in the 2nd round of the Olympic Qualifying Round Play-offs, and the South Korean men's soccer team had traveled to Japan in late March to participate in the World Warm-Up Match with the Japanese team. Upon their return to Korea, the two teams were each pulled to their bases in Paju for at least seven days of isolation, followed by other necessary periods of medical investigation.
Thus, at least within the East Asian region (including East Asia and Southeast Asia), the participating teams will face the problem of "quarantine" if they participate in the 12-team tournament according to the home-and-away system.
Because of the different epidemic prevention measures and their norms adopted by different countries or regions during the epidemic, the teams of the 12-team tournament will face real problems once they go to play away games. The reason why the remaining seven matches in Group A, where the Chinese team is playing in the 40-team tournament, were temporarily moved to Sharjah, UAE, is precisely because of the differences in the norms of different countries in implementing the epidemic prevention rules. This experience is actually a wake-up call for the CFA and the Chinese team to formulate the preparation program for the 12-team tournament.
Australia skipper Arnold had said after his team's inclusion in the 12-team tournament, "How will the team organize itself next? To tell you the truth I don't know. I can't confirm whether the team will be able to compete within Australia this year, let alone where the venue will be organized once the team goes overseas." It is understood that the Australian Football Association by the country's anti-epidemic policy, previously abandoned the opportunity to bid for the 40 strong this group of events, and the Australian Super 3 clubs have even announced the withdrawal of this season's AFC Champions League.
Faced with such a difficult problem, some of the member associations participating in the 12-team tournament have already expressed their stance to the AFC: it is difficult for their representative teams to participate in the 12-team tournament according to the home-and-away system and they hope to adopt the tournament system.
However, a participant in the AFC competition operations revealed that so far, the AFC has not changed the "12 strong match using home and away" program.
The AFC actually has to focus on a couple of guidelines in making decisions about major competitions. The first is to ensure the health and safety of all participants. On the other hand, the AFC also has to consider the issue of "interests". The global soccer industry has suffered huge losses due to the epidemic, and the AFC has also been hit hard. It is reported that the AFC's biggest source of revenue is the media rights and commercial sponsorship of the tournament. The highest gold content of the rights and interests of the World Preliminary Cup, its commercial value is even higher than the Asian Cup. The AFC previously also in accordance with the 12 strong match using the home and away system to carry out the tournament business development work. Therefore, once the tournament system changes, the AFC will certainly suffer more serious economic losses, if the situation is serious, the AFC is even facing the danger of "bankruptcy".
Therefore, the AFC is not willing to change the tournament system. It's just that in the context of the global epidemic, they really can't give a clearer answer on the tournament system either.
Unlike the previous 40-team tournament, the Asian part of the World Qualifiers entered the 3rd stage and the 12-team tournament, the tournament is entirely hosted by the World Football Confederation (WFC), with the AFC only as the organizer, and the tournament is subjected to the strict limitations of the tournament schedule. As the schedule for the final stage of the World Cup in Qatar has long been finalized, the WFC requires that the continental federation qualifiers must be completed by June 2022 to ensure that the 32 teams have enough time to prepare for the tournament. Therefore, the AFC will need to listen to the views of the WFC on whether to adjust the format of the 12-team tournament.
If the 12-team tournament adopts the tournament system, then the resulting trouble or chain reaction is also very big, because once so, the World Football Federation must adjust the World Competition Day cycle to meet the needs of the tournament system of competition. This will not only require the member associations to coordinate their schedules, but also the clubs where the teams' international players are based will need to make adjustments, and may even have to make huge sacrifices. In other words, once the Asian qualifiers are adjusted to the tournament system, it may have an impact on the organization of qualifiers and other soccer activities in other continents.
The issue of timing is the main problem that all parties cannot get around. According to the relevant rules of the World Football Federation (WFF), clubs must unconditionally release their national players at the arrival of the established national team's World Competition Day cycle. 4 rounds of the second half of the 40-team tournament can be held in the period from the end of May to June 15, thanks to the contingency resolution of the WFF in September last year, which extends the World Competition Day cycle by one week from May 31 to June 8 and stipulates that a maximum of 4 competition days can be organized during the period. It was also stipulated that a maximum of four competition days would be organized during the period. The purpose of this resolution was to deal with all sorts of unforeseen circumstances. As a result, the resolution was very predictable and scientific, and it bought time for the centralized system to be adopted for the second half of the 40-team tournament.
So it seems that if the 12-team tournament adopts the tournament system, then the tournament organizers will have to introduce a sufficient World Match Day cycle. However, the WFC 2021 calendar shows that there is not a long enough World Matchday cycle for the second half of the year, with the World Matchday cycle for September, October and November only meeting the demand for two matchdays each. Therefore, even if the AFC complies with the associations' wishes and proposes to switch to the matchday system, it will need to be considered by the WFC Council and it is difficult to say whether it will be adopted.
