Asian Football Confederation

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Asian Football Confederation
AFC logo
AFC members
Motto	"The Future is Asia"
Formation	1954
Type	Sports organization
Headquarters	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Membership	46 member associations (from 4 regional federations)
President	Mohammed Bin Hammam
Website	http://www.the-afc.com

The 46 member Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of football in Asia, excluding Cyprus and Israel but including Australia. It was founded in 1954 in Manila, Philippines, and is one of FIFA's six Continental Confederations. (Nations with some European and some Asian territory, such as Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Georgia, are instead covered by UEFA.) The main headquarters is located in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The current president is Mohammed Bin Hammam of Qatar.

1 AFC competitions
2 Women's football in Asia
3 Regions
4 Competitions
- 4.1 AFC tournaments
- 4.2 Regional tournaments
5 World Cup qualifiers
- 5.1 Totals (current members)
6 AFC Awards
7 External links

[edit] AFC competitions

The AFC runs the Asian Cup, a competition for the national football teams of Asia held every four years, as well as the Asian World Cup Qualifying Tournament and the AFC Challenge Cup. It also runs the Asian Olympics Qualifying Tournament. The AFC also runs three levels of annual international club competitions. The most prestigious (and oldest of the current AFC club competitions) is the AFC Champions League tournament, based on the UEFA Champions League, formed in 2002/03 with the amalgamation of the Asian Champions Cup and the Asian Cup Winners Cup. (An Asian Super Cup competition between the winners of these two major tournaments ended with the birth of the AFC Champions League.) The other competitions branched off this in 2004 when the 'Vision Asia' blueprint for development was launched. This led to the top fourteen AFC nations, the 'mature nations', sending their best teams to the AFC Champions League. The next 14 nations, the 'developing nations' qualify to send their teams to the AFC Cup.

The rest of the AFC-affiliated countries, the 'emerging nations' send their teams to the AFC President's Cup. The teams which qualify from each country are usually the champions and the cup winners ^[1]. Currently there is no promotion and relegation between the different levels of nations.

The AFC is going to revamp 22 leagues in Asia, 10 of them by 2009-2012. This is due to the poor performance / absence of Asian teams in the 2006 World Cup. The reforms include: increasing transparency, increase competitiveness, improving training facilities and forcing the leagues to have a system of relegation and promotion. [2]

The 10 leagues marked for reform are: Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

[edit] Women's football in Asia

The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) is the section of the AFC who manage women's football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986 the ALFC merged with the AFC ^[3]. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation helped organise the AFC Women's Championship, first held in 1975, as well as the AFC's AFC U-19 Women's Championship and the AFC U-17 Women's Championship.

On January 1, 2006 Australia became the 46th member of the AFC. See the list of AFC member states.

[edit] Regions

The AFC is split into 4 regions[4]. Below shows how the national teams of Asia are split up by region (but are not necessarily part of their regional football federation). As a rule, because of cultural reasons, only the ASEAN and East Asian regions field equivalent women's teams.

[edit] ASEAN Football Federation

Main article: ASEAN Football Federation

[edit] East Asian Football Federation

Main article: East Asian Football Federation

[edit] West Asian Football Federation

Main article: West Asian Football Federation

[edit] Central and South Asian Football Federation

Main article: Central and South Asian Football Federation

(*South Asian countries)

[edit] Competitions

[edit] AFC tournaments

AFC football v • d • e
Asian Cup \| Challenge Cup \| Youth Championship \| U-17 Championship \| Futsal Championship
AFC clubs football
Champions League \| Cup \| President's Cup \| Cup Winners Cup (defunct) \| Super Cup (defunct)
AFC women's football
Championship \| U-19 Championship \| U-17 Championship

[edit] Regional tournaments

ASEAN: ASEAN Football Championship (formely known as the Tiger Cup prior to 2007)-
Central Asia: Officially only 4 countries in this region (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan left for UEFA). No official tournament held between countries in this region.
East Asia: East Asian Cup
South Asia: South Asian Football Federation Cup
West Asia: West Asian Football Federation Championship (Although not all West Asian Countries enter), Gulf Cup of Nations