Asian Football Confederation

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Asian Football Confederation
AFC logo
AFC members
Motto	"The Future is Asia"
Formation	1954
Type	Sports organization
Headquarters	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Membership	46 member associations (from 4 regional federations)
President	Mohammed Bin Hammam
Website	http://www.the-afc.com

The 46 member Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of football in Asia, excluding Cyprus and Israel but including Australia. It was founded in 1954 in Manila, Philippines, and is one of FIFA's six Continental Confederations. (Nations with some European and some Asian territory, such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, and Russia, are instead covered by UEFA; Israel, which lies entirely in Asia, is also a UEFA member.) The main headquarters is located in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The current president is Mohammed Bin Hammam of Qatar.

1 AFC competitions
2 Women's football in Asia
3 Regions
4 Competitions
- 4.1 AFC tournaments
- 4.2 Regional tournaments
5 Awards
- 5.1 Asian Footballer of the Year
- 5.2 Asian Young Footballer of the Year
6 World Cup qualifiers
- 6.1 Totals (current members)
7 References
8 External links

[edit] AFC competitions

The AFC runs the Asian Cup, a competition for the national football teams of Asia held every four years, as well as the Asian World Cup Qualifying Tournament and the AFC Challenge Cup. It also runs the Asian Olympics Qualifying Tournament. The AFC also runs three levels of annual international club competitions. The most prestigious (and oldest of the current AFC club competitions) is the AFC Champions League tournament, based on the UEFA Champions League, formed in 2002/03 with the amalgamation of the Asian Champions Cup and the Asian Cup Winners Cup. (An Asian Super Cup competition between the winners of these two major tournaments ended with the birth of the AFC Champions League.) The other competitions branched off this in 2004 when the 'Vision Asia' blueprint for development was launched. This led to the top fourteen AFC nations, the 'mature nations', sending their best teams to the AFC Champions League. The next 14 nations, the 'developing nations' qualify to send their teams to the AFC Cup.

The rest of the AFC-affiliated countries, the 'emerging nations' send their teams to the AFC President's Cup. The teams which qualify from each country are usually the champions and the cup winners ^[1]. Currently there is no promotion and relegation between the different levels of nations.

The AFC is going to revamp 22 leagues in Asia, 10 of them by 2009-2012. This is due to the poor performance / absence of Asian teams in the 2006 World Cup. The reforms include: increasing transparency, increase competitiveness, improving training facilities and forcing the leagues to have a system of relegation and promotion. [2]

The 10 leagues marked for reform are: Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The proposal would mark a radical change in Australia, where professional leagues in all sports are organised on a model of franchised teams and closed league membership, a system most commonly identified with North America.

There are 12 AFC Nations that play in the UAFA organised Arab Nations Cup. These nations are Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

[edit] Women's football in Asia

The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) is the section of the AFC who manage women's football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986 the ALFC merged with the AFC ^[3]. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation helped organise the AFC Women's Championship, first held in 1975, as well as the AFC's AFC U-19 Women's Championship and the AFC U-17 Women's Championship.

On January 1, 2006 Australia became the 46th member of the AFC. See the list of AFC member states.

[edit] Regions

The AFC is split into four regions.[4] Below shows how the national teams of Asia are split up by region (but are not necessarily part of their regional football federation). As a rule, because of cultural restrictions, only the ASEAN and East Asian regions field equivalent women's teams.

[edit] ASEAN Football Federation

Main article: ASEAN Football Federation

[edit] East Asian Football Federation

Main article: East Asian Football Federation

[edit] West Asian Football Federation

Main article: West Asian Football Federation

[edit] Central and South Asian Football Federation

Main article: Central and South Asian Football Federation

(*South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) members)

[edit] Competitions

[edit] AFC tournaments

AFC football

v • d • e

Asian Cup | Challenge Cup | Youth Championship | U-17 Championship | Futsal Championship

AFC clubs football

v • d • e

Champions League | Cup | President's Cup | Cup Winners Cup (defunct) | Super Cup (defunct)

AFC women's football

v • d • e

Asian Cup | U-19 Championship | U-17 Championship

[edit] Regional tournaments

ASEAN: ASEAN Football Championship (formely known as the Tiger Cup prior to 2007)-
Central Asia: Officially only 4 countries in this region (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan left for UEFA). No official tournament held between countries in this region.
East Asia: East Asian Cup
South Asia: South Asian Football Federation Cup
West Asia: West Asian Football Federation Championship (Although not all West Asian Countries enter), Gulf Cup of Nations

[edit] Awards

[edit] Asian Footballer of the Year

The Asian Footballer of the Year award is presented to the best football player from Asia. Officially awarded since 1994. The official name is Asian Football Confederation's Sanyo Player of the Year Award. Prior to 1994 it was awarded on an unofficial basis. The winners from 1988 to 1991 were chosen by IFFHS.

Year	Footballer	Nation	Club
1988	Ahmed Radhi	Iraq	Al-Rasheed
1989	Kim Joo-Sung	Korea Republic	Daewoo Royals
1990	Kim Joo-Sung	Korea Republic	Daewoo Royals
1991	Kim Joo-Sung	Korea Republic	Daewoo Royals
1992	No award
1993	Kazuyoshi Miura	Japan	Verdy Kawasaki
1994	Saeed Owairan	Saudi Arabia	Al-Shabab
1995	Masami Ihara	Japan	Yokohama Marinos
1996	Khodadad Azizi	Iran	Bahman
1997	Hidetoshi Nakata	Japan	Bellmare Hiratsuka
1998	Hidetoshi Nakata	Japan	Perugia
1999	Ali Daei	Iran	Hertha BSC Berlin
2000	Nawaf Al Temyat	Saudi Arabia	Al-Hilal
2001	Fan Zhiyi	China PR	Dundee F.C.
2002	Shinji Ono	Japan	Feyenoord
2003	Mehdi Mahdavikia	Iran	Hamburger SV
2004	Ali Karimi	Iran	Al-Ahli
2005	Hamad Al-Montashari	Saudi Arabia	Al-Ittihad
2006	Khalfan Ibrahim	Qatar	Al-Sadd
2007	Yasser Al-Qahtani	Saudi Arabia	Al-Hilal

Wins By Country

Nation	Winners
Japan	5
Iran	4
Saudi Arabia	4
Korea Republic	3
China PR	1
Iraq	1
Qatar	1

[edit] Asian Young Footballer of the Year

The Asian Young Footballer of the Year award is presented to the best young football player from Asia. Officially awarded since 1995.

Year	Footballer	Nation	Club
1995	Mohamed Amor Al Kathri	Oman
1996	Bamrong Boonprom	Thailand	Bangkok Bank
1997	Mehdi Mahdavikia	Iran	Persepolis
1998	Shinji Ono	Japan	Urawa Red Diamonds
1999	Waleed Hamzah	Qatar	Al-Arabi
2000	Ryoichi Maeda	Japan	Jubilo Iwata
2001	Du Wei	China	Shanghai Shenhua
2002	Lee Chun-Soo	South Korea	Ulsan Tigers
2003	Yoshito Okubo	Japan	Cerezo Osaka
2004	Park Chu-Young	South Korea	Korea University
2005	Choe Myong-Ho	North Korea	Kyonggongop
2006	Ma Xiaoxu	China	Dalian Shide

Wins By Country

Nation	Winners
Japan	3
China	2
South Korea	2
Iran	1
North Korea	1
Oman	1
Thailand	1
Iraq	1

[edit] World Cup qualifiers

The following table shows the AFC representatives at each edition of the FIFA World Cup, sorted by first appearance.

Team	1930	1934	1938	1950	1954	1958	1962	1966	1970	1974	1978	1982	1986	1990	1994	1998	2002	2006	Total
Korea Republic					•								•	•	•	•	•	•	7
Saudi Arabia															•	•	•	•	4
Iran											•					•		•	3
Japan																•	•	•	3
Australia¹										•								•	2
China PR																	•		1
India				•															1
Indonesia			•																1
Iraq													•						1
Korea DPR								•											1
Kuwait												•							1
United Arab Emirates														•					1
Israel²									•										1
Total	0	0	1	1	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	2	2	4	4	5	27