Officially ... the cancellation of the AFC Cup due to the Corona virus

The AFC Executive Committee canceled, in its videoconference today, the AFC Cup for 2020, due to the repercussions of the new Corona virus.

"In light of the logistics for coordinating the five regions in the AFC Cup, and completing the regions matches, the AFC Executive Committee agreed that the pandemic created complications that formed a force majeure, which sadly led to the cancellation of the 2020 competition," the confederation said in a statement.

A member of the Executive Committee and President of the Lebanese Federation, Hashem Haidar, said Wednesday in an interview with Agence France Presse that "the Executive Committee will consider the recommendation of the Competitions Committee to cancel the championship."

The tournament had stopped after two rounds of the first round last March, due to the outbreak of "Covid-19".

The Confederation tried to resume the tournament, using the grouping system, with matches to be held between October and November.

It was agreed that Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan would host the Western groups, and Vietnam the sixth and seventh groups, but none of the countries had come forward to host the rest of the groups (the fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth).

The former Confederation revealed in a book addressed to the national federations whose clubs participate in the tournament that it had received a request from its Bahraini counterpart to postpone the holding of the first group competitions, which includes the host teams Manama, the Lebanese reigning champion, the Palestinian Crescent of Jerusalem and the Syrian army.

"Following the announcement of the postponement of the AFC competitions during the months of March and April 2020, the federation plans to resume the Federation Cup matches after intensive discussions with the member federations and other major stakeholders in order to complete the new format and dates for the competition that will be played despite the presence of multiple restrictions in place due to the fact that To the epidemic that is spreading on a global scale. "

He added, "No concerns have emerged about hosting each of the sixth, seventh and eighth groups in the ASEAN region, in addition to the AFC being unable to finalize the identification of the two host federations for the fourth group - the middle and the ninth - east, while the Bahraini federation, the host of the first group, demanded that The competition will be postponed to 2021. "

"Based on the aforementioned challenges, the AFC will refer the issue to the relevant committees to study and decide on it, and what results from that will be communicated, in turn, with its content with the member federations."

The Lebanese Al-Ahed was crowned champion in the last version by beating the North Korean April 25 1-0 in the final match hosted by the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, instead of Pyongyang.

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