July 7 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said it has been forced into more revamping of its AFC Cup club competition cancelling all its ASEAN Zone matches in Groups G, H and I “due to the challenges imposed by the global pandemic in finding a suitable host to stage the centralised matches.”
The AFC Cup is the confederation’s second club competition providing a regional competition platform for club sides predominantly from emerging nations. The clubs affected come from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The AFC said the “the matches and groups of the AFC Cup 2021 across the remaining Zones will continue to maintain the overall structure of the competition giving due consideration to the existing format as well as the availability of centralised hosts in each Zone.”
This means AFC Cup Knockout Stage Central, West and Inter Zone single-leg ties will go ahead as planned beginning with the Central Zonal Final between Uzbekistan’s FC Nasaf and FC Ahal from Turkmenistan, which is scheduled to take place on August 25, at the Markaziy Stadium in Karshi, Uzbekistan.
The West Zonal Semi Final single-leg matches between Muharraq Club of Bahrain and title holders Al Ahed FC of Lebanon as well as Kuwait SC and Al Salt of Jordan will be held from September 20 to 21, 2021.
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