Three Central Asian nations – Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan — intend to submit a joint application for hosting the AFC Asian Cup in 20235. A sport expert from Uzbekistan, Alisher Hikimbayev, stated this on his Telegram-channel Footbolium.
Asked why the three neighboring countries don’t aim to jointly host the Asian Cup, the expert said:
“I have no right to speak formally. But as far as I understand, that's exactly how it's planned for 2035. And there is already informal goodness from AFC,” Hikimbayev said.
Uzbekistan reportedly has experience in hosting major international football competitions. It hosted the AFC U-20 Asian Cup and the AFC U-23 Asian Cup, and jointly with Kyrgyzstan, it hosted the CAFA nations Cup in 2023.
Recall, President of the Central Asian Football Association (CAFA), Speaker of the Mjlisi Milli (Tajikistan’s upper chamber of parliament), Rustam Emomali delivering a statement at CAFA congress in May last year, called for submitting an application for hosting AFC Asian Cup in 20131 or in 2032.
The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second-oldest continental football championship in the world after Copa América. The winning team becomes the champions of Asia and until 2015 qualified for the FIFA Confederations Cup.
The Asian Cup was held once every four years from the 1956 AFC Asian Cup in Hong Kong until the 2004 tournament in China. However, since the Summer Olympic Games and the European Football Championship were also scheduled in the same year as the Asian Cup, the AFC decided to move their championship to a less crowded cycle. After 2004, the tournament was next held in 2007, when it was co-hosted by four countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Thereafter, it has again been held every four years.
The Asian Cup has generally been dominated by a small number of top teams. Prominently successful teams include Japan (four times), Iran, Saudi Arabia (three times each), South Korea and Qatar (twice each). The other teams which have achieved success are Australia (2015), Iraq (2007) and Kuwait (1980). Israel won in 1964 but was later expelled and has since joined UEFA.
Australia joined the Asian confederation in 2007 and hosted the Asian Cup finals in 2015, winning the competition in the final against South Korea. The 2019 tournament was expanded from 16 teams to 24 teams, with the qualifying process doubling as part of the qualification for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Since 1972, the final tournament has been played in two stages: the group stage and the knockout stage.
Since 2019, each team plays three games in a group of four, with the winners and runners-up from each group advancing to the knockout stage along with four best third-placed teams. In the knockout stage, the sixteen teams compete in a single-elimination tournament, beginning with the round of 16 and ending with the final match of the tournament.
