AFC is gradually becoming "Western Asian". This trend has been going on for a long time. It can be seen from the Asian Cup division between the East and West Asian regions that the AFC is interested in "careing for" West Asia, whether at the national team or club level. After all, West Asia is generally rich and has invested in football, which is naturally conducive to the work of the AFC. Now with the official announcement of the 2023 Asian Cup to settle in Qatar , South Korea's bid failed, and the original balance of the alternating Asian Cup East and West Asia has also been broken.
at the AFC Executive Committee held in Kuala Lumpur , and also announced some of the matters of the next 2027 Asian Cup. With the withdrawal of Qatar, Iran and other places, as well as the addition of Saudi and India, the 2027 Asian Cup has already been held. Due to the relatively backward football level and hardware facilities in India, it is highly likely that the 2027 Asian Cup will fall into Saudi Arabia. This shows that even though East Asian football is stronger, the AFC is still the world of West Asia.
South Korea is also summarizing the failure of the bid. In fact, South Korea has highly supported the bid for this event. After all, as an Asian football powerhouse, the last time the Asian Cup was held was in the distant 1960, and the popularity of the South Korea and Japan World Cup has long passed, so South Korea is determined to win the bid. However, Qatar has put out real money to support the development of the AFC and domestic football, such as increasing the Asian Cup broadcast budget, supporting the AFC's difficult clubs, etc. In short, South Korea has lost to Qatar's huge wealth.
It is reported that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have cooperated in bidding for the Asian Cup. Originally, Qatar and Saudi Arabia applied to host the 2027 Asian Cup at the same time. After China gave up the right to host, Saudi Arabia and Qatar competed with each other, so Qatar gave up the 2027 change to 2023. The former's chances of winning are definitely greater. With the rise of West Asian football, the national football team will be hit harder in the future. The West Asian team will have an advantage over us physically. With the development and promotion of West Asian football in the future, all parties will leave us farther and farther away.
However, this time the 2023 Asian Cup was won by Qatar, which is a good thing for the Chinese national football team. Since the summer in West Asia is too hot, the Asian Cup will also be modeled after the World Cup and will be postponed to winter, so the Asian Cup in Qatar will be held by the end of 2023. For the national football team, this invisibly adds half a year to prepare, and now there is a whole year to prepare for the national football team. The current national football personnel are uncertain about football and the coach candidate is unknown. It is at least beneficial to give us enough preparation time, although our strength may not be greatly improved.
