The third stage of the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers was changed to a competition system

On October 20, the AFC has news that the AFC Executive Committee confirmed on the same day that due to the epidemic, the third stage of the 2023 China Asian Cup qualifiers to start in February next year will be the original planned home and away games. The competition system was changed to a centralized system.

The qualifiers for the new Asian Cup football match are divided into three stages. The first two stages are “combined” with the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers. In other words, in the Qatar World Preliminary 40, there are 12 teams (the top 12) of the 8 group leaders and 4 best performing runners-up will directly get tickets to the Asian Cup. The remaining 27 member association representative teams (excluding the host Chinese team) passed the third stage qualifiers and competed for the remaining 11 tickets. As the North Korean team withdrew from the top 40, the four teams with the worst scores in the top 40 added a round of play-offs in accordance with the AFC rules. The two winning teams and the remaining 22 teams, a total of 24 teams, will participate in the third stage of the competition. Qualifiers. It is understood that this stage of the qualifiers was originally planned to start in February next year, and the competition will also adopt the main system. The 24 teams away will perform according to the latest international qualifications, divided into 6 groups on average.
However, due to the epidemic, some teams from AFC member states (regions) cannot play at home. To this end, the AFC Executive Committee decided to fine-tune the third stage of the qualifiers game plan. Specifically, the group drawing method remains unchanged, but the original home and away system is changed to a centralized system, and the results are generated through a single-round event. All competitions will be held during the International Competition Day week in June. The specific competition time is June 8, 11, and 14, 2022. After these three rounds of competition, the winning players of the group will be able to directly receive the awards of the Asian Cup finals and get the same progress as the runner-up of the top five.
The AFC also announced the holding of the game. The AFC also confirmed that the third-stage group draw of the Asian Cup qualifiers will be based on the updated FIFA International Admissions on October 21. The draw time has not yet been determined.