The International Football Association (FIFA) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have mutually decided to postpone the upcoming Asian qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
In a press release issued by FIFA, the football body announced the decision was made after consultations with Asia's member associations.
The decision comes in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread in several countries across the globe.
The International Football Association (FIFA) announces the postponement of matches of this month and June of the Asian qualifiers for the Qatar World Cup 2022 #QNA
— Qatar News Agency (@QNAEnglish) March 9, 2020
"FIFA and the AFC will continue to assess the situation in relation to COVID-19 and will decide whether further changes to the schedule of Asian FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers are required, always with the aim of protecting the safety and health of all individuals involved," FIFA said.
The changes announced are as follows:
- Matches originally scheduled to take place during the international window of March 23 to 31, 2020 and June 1 to 9, 2020 are postponed to later dates.
- FIFA and the AFC will discuss further details of the postponed matches.
"However, in order to support the member associations concerned, and provided that the safety of all individuals involved meets the required standards and that the member associations due to play each other mutually agree, the match(es) may still be played during the international windows of March or June 2020, but always subject to prior approval from both FIFA and the AFC," FIFA mentioned.
FIFA and the AFC have also agreed to postpone the AFC Futsal Championship Turkmenistan 2020, which serves as the qualifiers for the FIFA Futsal World Cup Lithuania 2020, until August 5 to 16, 2020.
The upcoming qualifiers for the Olympic Football Tournaments are foreseen to be played as scheduled, with the exception of the women’s Olympic qualifiers play-off between Korea Republic and China PR, which will now take place during the international window of June 1 to 10, 2020, FIFA announced.
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