November 5 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has followed the IFAB lead on the extension of the five subs provision, and is keeping the temporary law amendment in place for its competitions through to the end of 2022.
At a meeting of the AFC’s Competitions Committee this week it was also decided to relax foreign player registration for the Champions League and the AFC Cup, allowing clubs to register any number of foreign players, but to keep the existing 3+1 quota for the competition itself.
In a further relaxation of rules to allow clubs greater flexibility around the challenges of covid, and a heavier player workload as competitions catch-up on missed and truncated seasons, the committee agreed to increase the maximum number of players in the Preliminary Registration from 30 to 35.
The AFC has delivered six competitions in 2021 as well as starting its crucial Asian Qualifiers – Road to Qatar. The committee, chaired by Dr Tran Quoc Tuan, “recognised the commitment of the Asian football family in enabling the AFC to remain on its path to deliver (these competitions) which is a significant improvement from 2020 when the outbreak restricted the AFC to staging just two competitions.”
Not all member associations have managed to return fully to AFC competitions due to covid travel restrictions. The difficulties were recognised by the committee that decided that a number of withdrawals would be treated as a force majeure, rather than a default and hence subject to a sanction.
The withdrawals of the Australian clubs – Brisbane Roar, Melbourne FC and Sydney FC – from the Champions League 2021 were recognised as events of force majeure, as were the AFC Cup withdrawals from Macau of MUST CPK and Benfica Macau.
The U23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022T – Qualifiers withdrawals of Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, China PR, DPR Korea and Macau were similarly recognised.
Age groups reshuffled
Meanwhile, the Committee also approved to set a lower age limit in addition to the existing upper age limit for the AFC U20 and U17 Asian Cups beginning from the 2023 edition, “taking into consideration the need to ensure greater consistency with the respective FIFA age-group competitions, while protecting the wellbeing of Asia’s young players and at the same time, enabling sufficient playing opportunities.”
Age eligibility for the AFC U20 Asian Cup 2023 will be for players born on or after 1 January 2003 to those born on or before 31 December 2007, while the eligibility for the AFC U17 Asian Cup 2023 will be for players born on or after 1 January 2006 to those born on or before 31 December 2008.
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