Dream of Hosting After 63 Years Dashed... Asian Cup Venue Moves to Qatar

China Returns Next Year's Hosting Rights to Qatar
Surge in Volume Falls Short of Overcoming World Cup Infrastructure

[Image source=Yonhap News]

South Korea's dream of hosting the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup at home for the first time in 63 years has been dashed.

On the 17th, the AFC selected Qatar as the host country for next year's Asian Cup at an executive committee meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Originally, the tournament was scheduled to be held next June in ten Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. However, China relinquished the hosting rights citing COVID-19 prevention measures, prompting the need to find a new host country.

South Korea, which had repeatedly failed to secure hosting rights since the 2nd tournament in 1960, submitted an application and competed against Qatar and Indonesia. The competition effectively narrowed down to a two-way race with Qatar, due to a large-scale violent incident at a recent Indonesian professional league match.

The Korea Football Association prepared its bid with active government support. Since the tournament was initially planned to be held in East Asian countries like China, they heavily promoted the advantage of maintaining the pre-set schedule and framework. They also presented a blueprint to transform the event into a new festival by integrating the globally established Korean Wave (Hallyu) cultural content with football.

However, it was insufficient to surpass Qatar's massive support, which reportedly promised substantial financial backing to the AFC, including expenses for inviting participating countries. Qatar can also utilize the state-of-the-art infrastructure built for this year's FIFA World Cup directly for the Asian Cup. With this successful bid, Qatar will host another high-profile sports event following the FIFA World Cup next month, the AFC U-23 Asian Cup, and the 2030 Asian Games.

Meanwhile, the AFC executive committee selected India and Saudi Arabia as the final candidates to host the 2017 Asian Cup. The host country will be decided at the AFC General Assembly in February next year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.