AFC Turmoil
Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 11:30 am
It has been a busy 5 days in the AFC where the Saudi's are trying to form a new regional grouping, South West Asian Football Federation, that includes all the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) members bar Nepal & Bhutan and all of the West Asian Football Federation members that are aligned to it politically. Hence the new grouping would consist of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Maldives, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The headquarters are in Jeddah.
This would effectively dissolve the existing SAFF and render the WAFF ineffectual with only Jordan. Qatar, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine remaining. If it went ahead, one would assume these would join the Central Asian Football Federation (Iran already moved there in 2014).
How the AFC reacts to this overtly politicaly move, to use football to strengthen regional political divides, will be interesting.
At this stage the SAFF members are keeping their cards close to their chest, so it is unclear if they will indeed join the Saudi led bloc.
There are news releases from the SWAFF and Saudi media that suggest the new grouping will be running club & national competitions that will compete with existing AFC competitions. Those reports need to be treated with some scepticism given the early stages of SWAFF and the politics surrounding it.
The real question in the long term is if the Saudi's try to compete with the AFC, will it result in an AFC split?
More details regarding SWAFF should be available after a mooted meeting on May 25th and then a proposed general assembly following the World Cup.
Interesting times ahead for both East and West Asia.
An overview of some of the politics can be found here: https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/05/12/ ... r-pitches/
The headquarters are in Jeddah.
This would effectively dissolve the existing SAFF and render the WAFF ineffectual with only Jordan. Qatar, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine remaining. If it went ahead, one would assume these would join the Central Asian Football Federation (Iran already moved there in 2014).
How the AFC reacts to this overtly politicaly move, to use football to strengthen regional political divides, will be interesting.
At this stage the SAFF members are keeping their cards close to their chest, so it is unclear if they will indeed join the Saudi led bloc.
There are news releases from the SWAFF and Saudi media that suggest the new grouping will be running club & national competitions that will compete with existing AFC competitions. Those reports need to be treated with some scepticism given the early stages of SWAFF and the politics surrounding it.
The real question in the long term is if the Saudi's try to compete with the AFC, will it result in an AFC split?
More details regarding SWAFF should be available after a mooted meeting on May 25th and then a proposed general assembly following the World Cup.
Interesting times ahead for both East and West Asia.
An overview of some of the politics can be found here: https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/05/12/ ... r-pitches/