Expansion in Asia
Asian Cup finals set to copy Europe and feature 24 teams
t is fair to say that opinion remains divided as to whether this summer’s expanded European Championship was a success. And that debate will be rekindled in January 2019 when the Asian Cup moves to United Arab Emirates and features 24 teams for the first time – eight more than usual.
The same concerns will be aired. Some will be worried about the presence of too many weak teams playing cautiously, and the possibility of a nation that finishes third in their group going on to win the title. Others will argue that allowing more nations to the party simply makes it bigger, better and more fun.
The 2015 Asian Cup in Australia was not only the last 16-team tournament, it was also the end of an era, with only 20 of the AFC’s 46 full members entered in qualification, with the top three from the previous tournament also going through. Those countries that were not allowed to enter went into the AFC Challenge Cup – a low-key event for ‘“developing nations”. But while this second-tier tournament offered some useful competitive matches, as far as the Asian Cup was concerned, it left much of Asia on the outside.
As well as half the continent not even being involved in qualification when the tournament started, it was geographically imbalanced. While Southeast Asia is the most passionate football area in the region, countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were absent. South Asia – with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and others – was also not represented.
In most of these absent nations, there was more interest in the Euros than their own confederation’s competition – meaning two billion potential fans were not paying attention to the Asian Cup.
Missing out on markets that are home to over a quarter of the planet’s population has been a source of conversation at AFC HQ in Kuala Lumpur for years. So, for commercial and prestige reasons, it was felt best to allow eight more teams into the Asian Cup and to open up qualification to all.
Compared to the European Championship, there is less of a concern about the dilution of quality. There has long been quite a drop between the top four in Asia, followed by a few dark horses and then the rest. If truth be told, few fans over the years have raved about the quality of the football on show at the Asian Cup.
Any drop of standards should be more than offset by the benefits of having teams from Southeast Asia and India competing.
More nations means more interest, and more interaction can only help the tournament to grow and become more meaningful. There is also the hope that having the smaller teams mixing with the bigger nations in a major tournament will, in the long-run, help all to grow stronger.
There are, of course, still issues. While Asian Cup qualification has been increased, it has also been merged with World Cup qualification. This means the six weakest teams, who are eliminated in the preliminary round knockout stage, play just two competitive games in four years. The AFC has talked about starting a new tournament for these teams but nothing has materialised as yet.
Overall, the expansion of the Asian Cup has the potential to help lift the tournament to another level off the pitch. It could make it truly continental, make it bigger, more important, more colourful and more newsworthy, in Asia and around the world.
On the pitch improvements can wait. The Euros offered an interesting experiment but the situations are not the same.