Vietnam to send two football teams to AFF Club Championship 2023
This morning (October 4), the Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF) Competition Committee held its 10th meeting in the 2019-2023 term. The main content was to discuss the plan to organize football tournaments in 2023. Acting President of the Vietnam Football Federation Tran Quoc Tuan attended the competition as a member of the AFF Council, Deputy Chairman of the AFF Competition Committee.
07/10/2022 09:19:57
After the welcome speech of AFF President Khiev Sameth, the members attending the meeting discussed and contributed ideas around the expected plan to organize Southeast Asian football tournaments in 2023, including a system of youth tournaments and senior team tournaments for men’s football, women’s football, futsal and beach soccer. The AFF Competition Board also discussed and approved the report on the preparation for the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2022 and especially the plan to organize the 2023 Southeast Asian Club Championships – the tournaments has been restarted by AFF in 2020 but was later unable to take place due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic.
As for the youth tournaments, due to coincide with the schedule of FIFA (World Cup U20) and AFC (U20 Asian Cup), the AFF U17 and U20 championship will not be held in 2023. These two tournaments will take place in 2024. For the same reason, the AFF Club Futsal Championship and the AFF Beach Soccer Championship will also be moved to 2024 to avoid overlap with the AFC Futsal Cup 2023 and 2023 AFC Beach Soccer Cup.
Meanwhile, the AFF U23 Championship will continue to be held in 2023 but will choose a time that is suitable for the schedule of the U23 Asian Cup 2024 Qualifier, the Paris Olympics 2024 and the schedule of international matches of FIFA. The 2023 AFF Women’s U19 and U16 Championships are expected to be held in July and August 2023, respectively. The 2023 AFF Women’s Cup will take place from September 18 to October 8, 2023 while the 2023 AFF futsal Championship is scheduled to be held from October 2 to October 13, 2023. This is also the tournament that counts as the 2024 Asian Futsal Qualifier.
For the 2023 AFF Club Championship, the AFF Competition Committee has also unanimously approved the time and format of the competition. Accordingly, the tournament will gather the participation of 12 clubs from countries in the region, of which Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia each have 2 representatives; Philippines and Singapore have 1 representative each; 4 countries including Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are each assigned 1 representative to play in the play-off round to compete for the remaining 2 places to attend the 2023 AFF Club Championship. The play-off round is expected to be held on August 26, 2023 (first leg) and August 29, 2023 (second leg). The main round will take place from September 27, 2023 to May 15, 2024.
The 12 participating teams will be divided into 2 groups of 6 teams each, competing in the same format as the AFF Cup. Specifically, in the group stage, the teams will play in a round-robin round according to the draw codes for home matches and away matches. The first and second place teams will advance to the semi-finals (2 legs). The two semi-final winners will advance to the finals (2 legs) to compete for the championship. The total prize including support for participating clubs is up to 1.5 million USD.
Participating in the discussion and commenting at the meeting, VFF Acting President Tran Quoc Tuan basically agreed with the tentative plan to organize Southeast Asian tournaments in 2023. However, to ensure the oppoturnity for youth football, Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan proposed to organize tournaments for U15 and U18 Southeast Asia instead of U17 and U20 Southeast Asia (held in 2024 due to the same schedule as FIFA’s and AFC’s tournament as mentioned above). This will help young players in the region continue to have the opportunity to compete and accumulate international experience to prepare for Asian tournaments in the coming years.
For the 2023 AFF Women’s Cup, Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan also suggested that the AFF Competition Committee study and choose to organize it at a more suitable time, because the expected time of the AFF Women’s Cup is to take place from September 18 to October 8, 2023 coincides with the time of Asiad 2022 (due to the influence of Covid-19 it has been moved to hold from September 23 to October 8, 2023). In addition, Mr. Tran Quoc Tuan also suggested that the AFF Competition Committee continue to discuss to find the most optimal solution for the organization of the 2023 Asian U23 Championship, how to ensure there is no conflict with the schedule of FIFA and AFC competitions, and at the same time limit the influence on the schedule of League tournaments of countries in the region.
