AFC - Asian Football Confederation
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, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Russia, 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.
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. 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.
The 10 leagues marked for reform are: Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The proposal would mark a radical change in Australia, where professional leagues in all sports are organised on a model of franchised teams and closed league membership, a system most commonly identified with North America.
There are 12 AFC Nations that play in the UAFA organised Arab Nations Cup. These nations are Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Related pages
AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC, UEFA