DUSHANBE, March 5, 2013, Asia-Plus — More than hundred vehicles with fans of Ravshan Kulob on board arrived in Khujand, the capital of Sughd province on March 4 to support their team that will meet there with Al-Ramtha from Jordan in a group stage match of the 2013 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup.
The match will start at Khujand’s central stadium on March 6 at 3:00 pm.
Ravshan Kulob is a football club based in Kulob, formed in 1965 as FK Ansol Kulob. The club was renamed FK Olimp-Ansol Kulob in 2003, before changing to its current name in 2005.
We will recall that two Tajik teams – Ravshan from Kulob and Regar-TadAz from Tursunzoda – are participating in the 2013 AFC Cup. Tajikistan’s Cup winner Regar-TadAz will begin participation in the competition from the play-off round.
The 2013 AFC Cup is the 10th edition of the AFC Cup, a football competition organized by AFC for clubs from “developing countries” in Asia.
The AFC Cup is an annual international association football competition between domestic clubs sides run by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Qualification to the competition is to clubs from AFC-affiliated countries which fall into the AFC”s ”developing nations” category as laid out in their ”Vision Asia” document. Countries which are ”mature” nations are entered into the AFC Champions League, and countries which are ”emerging” nations are entered into the AFC President”s Cup.
The ”developing nations” are the fourteen ”next-best” countries which lie outside the top-14 countries in the AFC region which send their club sides to the more prestigious AFC Champions League. Before the reform in competition format that took place in 2009, the two competitions were not interlinked and AFC Champions League losers did not compete in the Cup. Following the reform in 2009, finalists of the AFC Cup meeting AFC”s criteria and certain other eligible teams are allowed to compete in the qualifying round of AFC Champions League with the losers of the said round demote to play in the AFC Cup.
