January 11 – Asian Football Confederation President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has welcomed FIFA’s decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams saying it can only benefit the development of Asian football.
December 6 – Australia’s 10 team A-League is set to add another two teams and perhaps more, according to reports in Australia.
November 28 – Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers has approved plans to privatise its football clubs after consultancy firm Deloitte conducted a year-long feasibility study.
November 16 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has doubled the prize money for its flagship Champions League final winners from $1.5 million to $3 million.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 8 – The much debated merger between India’s two main leagues may have to be delayed beyond next year as the country struggles to stamp its mark on the global game.
By Samindra Kunti
November 7 – In a historic AFC Cup final Iraq won their first regional club championship at the third time of asking when Hammadi Ahmed scored the decisive goal for Iraq’s Air Force Club to overcome India’s Bengaluru FC in Doha.
October 24 – Vietnam’s U-19 men created history in a dramatic AFC quarter final 1-0 win over Bahrain to qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup to be held in South Korea next weekend.
By Paul Nicholson
October 21 – Asia will have a new world champion tonight in a FIFA competition the Asian Football Confederation has dominated since its inception. The final of the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup, being played in Amman, Jordan, features defending champions Japan against AFC champions DPR Korea.
By Samindra Kunti
October 13 – The Indian Super League, the ISL, is shaking up Indian football as the league may usurp the I-League as the country’s principal competition as early as 2018.
October 11 – Fans attending today’s World Cup qualifier between Iran and South Korea in Tehran have been asked to replace traditional nationalist support with religious slogans because the match takes place on a holy day.
September 18 – The AFC Under 16 Champions kick off today in Goa, India, with four games including the hosts India against the United Arab Emirates at the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, while current champions Australia will face Kyrgystan at the GMC Stadium.
September 12 – Brazilian-born Santos Monteiro Junior Wanderley’s lust for international football travel seems to have caught up with him and his latest club, UAE’s Al Nasr, with the club being forced to forfeit their AFC Champions League quarter-final first-leg match against Qatar’s El Jaish.
By Paul Nicholson
September 8 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has launched a new national team competition, the AFC Solidarity Cup, today in Kuala Lumpur. The first edition of the planned nine-team competition will be played this year in Malaysia, November 2-15.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 5 – In a bizarre case of possible deliberate deception, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have suspended United Arab Emirates-based Wanderley Santos Monteiro Junior for 60 days as they investigate whether the Brazilian-born forward has been using a forged Indonesian passport.
September 6 – Jordan, who are hosting the FIFA Women’s U-17 World Cup later this month, will become the first Middle East nation to host a senior Asian women’s football championship when it holds the next Women’s Asian Cup in 2018.
