Australia, Qatar, Korea express interest to host AFC Asian Cup 2023

The AFC has now asked interested nations to submit their bid documents by August 31.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has received Expressions of Interest (EoI) from four AFC Member Associations (MAs) to host the AFC Asian Cup 202 final competition, the federation said in a release on Monday.

Following the AFC's invitation to all the Member Associations (MAs) to express their interest in hosting the flagship men's national team tournament on May 31, 2022, the following AFC MAs have responded by the extended deadline of July 15, 2022, and expressed their interest to bid for the hosting rights of the AFC Asian Cup 2023:

• Football Australia
• Football Association of Indonesia
• Korea Football Association
• Qatar Football Association

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In accordance with the bidding process, the Bidding Regulations were distributed to the MAs on June 17, 2022, and the deadline for Bidding MAs to submit the Bid documents is set for August 31, 2022.

Following which, an overall evaluation of the bids will be undertaken by the AFC Administration prior to the selection and announcement of the host for the 24-team competition by the AFC Executive Committee on October 17, 2022.

Chian withdraw hosting rights for AFC Asian Cup 2023

Earlier, China following extensive discussions with the AFC withdrew its hosting rights and informed that it would not be able to host the AFC Asian Cup 2023 due to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and China's Zero-COVID policy.

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China PR were appointed as hosts of the 2023 edition on June 5, 2019, at the AFC Extraordinary Congress in Paris. The 24-team competition was to be hosted across 10 Chinese cities from June 16 to July 16, 2023.

However, following China's withdrawal, the AFC had invited a second round of bidding by the MAs within July 15. Four nations, Australia, Indonesia, Qatar and Korea have submitted their bids.

The competition has now been expanded to 24 teams. All teams will be divided into four pots of six teams each during the group stage draw. The pots will be decided based on the FIFA rankings at that time. India qualified for the tournament after finishing as Group D winners in the third round of qualification.

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