Stage set for U22- Qualifiers draw

Stage set for U-22 Qualifiers draw

Monday, 13 February 2012 14:18

Kuala Lumpur: The official draw for the AFC U-22 Asian Cup 2013, the new culminating platform for continental youth action, is scheduled to take place at AFC House on Tuesday at 11:00 hrs.The qualification campaign for the competition will start this year with the finals expected to be held in June 2013 while the next edition of the biennial competition will serve as qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics. A total of 41 Asian member associations have shown interest to compete in the competition. The 41 countries who will be featuring in the draw are Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China PR, Chinese Taipei, DPR Korea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Korea Republic, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor Leste, Turkmenistan, UAE, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Yemen. AFC has also finalised the draw mechanism according to which the seeding for the draw shall be based on the rankings of the AFC U-19 Championship 2010. Those countries who are participating in this competition but did not feature in the AFC U-19 Championship in 2010 (Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Maldives, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste and Turkmenistan) are placed as the lowest ranked countries. A total of 23 countries will feature in the qualifying rounds for the West Zone while the rest 18 will compete in the East Zone featuring seven groups of either six or five teams each. The top two teams of the one-round league (14 in total) will be featuring in the finals. There are berth allocations apiece for one best third-placed team and the hosts.