With the announcement of North Korea's withdrawal from the group stage of the upcoming restart of the Qatar World Preliminary Asian 40, the situation of the tournament seems to have been clarified. How the results will be calculated after the withdrawal has become the center of attention. This is not only related to the ranking of the eighth group in which the North Korean team is located, but also affects the comparison between the second place of other groups. It is reported that if the DPRK team finally withdraws from the tournament, its remaining three matches will be calculated as "0-3 losses", rather than completely withdrawing the previous results. In this way, the ranking of other Asian groups is basically unaffected.
The reporter learned from the AFC that in view of the global epidemic is still in dynamic change, the AFC has long been in accordance with the relevant temporary provisions of FIFA, the formulation of the epidemic during the special rules applicable to the AFC competition. The rules apply to all AFC official competitions and single soccer matches during the epidemic, and the establishment of the epidemic countermeasures sub-committee, specializing in dealing with a variety of special conditions.
The special rule was adopted at the AFC Executive Committee on September 10, 2020, and was partially revised at the Executive Committee meeting on March 17 this year. It is worth mentioning that the AFC and FIFA had announced in February this year that the last four rounds of the group stage of the 40-team tournament would be postponed to June to be held under the congregate tournament system, and in order to avoid the situation of withdrawing from the tournament due to the epidemic, the AFC revised the relevant contents. For example, under normal circumstances, registration after the withdrawal will be subject to disciplinary action, but the withdrawal during the epidemic is regarded as "force majeure", can be exempted from punishment. Recently, two clubs from Oman withdrew from the AFC Cup and two clubs from Myanmar withdrew from the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup, respectively, and were not penalized.
In response to the specific situation of the DPRK team, the DPRK team sent a letter to the AFC last month announcing that it would not participate in the remaining 40 matches on the grounds of the epidemic, also on the grounds of the "epidemic". The AFC Disciplinary Committee is afraid that it will be difficult for the DPRK FA to take any further disciplinary action against the team. If the DPRK withdraws, the match will be ruled a "0-3 loss" according to the rules. Therefore, if the DPRK team finally withdraws, its matches against Sri Lanka on June 7, South Korea on June 7 and Turkmenistan on June 15 will all be awarded 0-3 losses.
As a result, the opponents in the DPRK's group were relatively "advantaged", while the Lebanese team was "disadvantaged", as the Lebanese team's matches against the DPRK had already ended in a loss and a draw. However, with the DPRK's previous results still valid, the entire Group 8 will still consist of five teams. Therefore, this will not have much impact when the second place finishers in each group are compared. If all the previous results of the DPRK team were to be revoked, a series of chain reactions would be triggered. By choosing to award the DPRK a 0-3 loss for their remaining matches, the impact can be minimized. Of course, if Turkmenistan end up finishing second in the group, they will have a certain advantage when comparing with the other second-placed teams in the group due to the three points and three goal difference, especially when comparing the fourth and fifth-placed teams. However, only one or two teams will be affected, unlike the revocation of all the results of the DPRK's matches, which affects the second place finishers of all the groups.
On the other hand, the DPRK team has a chance to qualify for the 2023 Asian Cup even if it withdraws from the tournament due to the epidemic because of its good results in previous tournaments. The AFC will not completely "isolate" the DPRK. Currently, the DPRK has 8 points, which is significantly better than the fourth place of other groups.
If the AFC finally issues a resolution that "North Korea withdraws and loses the remaining matches by 0-3", China will not be affected. But no matter what, the Chinese team still need to firmly control their own destiny, the remaining four games all win, in order to successfully out of the 40 round of the tournament, into the 12 round of the tournament!
