The Asian Cup will be played in January next year
The AFC has recently agreed with the Qatar Organising Committee on the timing of the 2023 Asian Cup, which will be scheduled for January 2024. However, it will be coordinated with FIFA and will not be officially announced until FIFA confirms it. The Asian qualifiers for the 6th U23 Asian Cup and Paris Olympic Games will definitely be held after the Asian Cup.
The Asian Cup is awaiting confirmation from FIFA
On 1 February, the AFC held its 33rd Congress in Bahrain, and the first meeting was held immediately after the election of a new AFC Executive Committee. At the meeting, Araneta, a member of the FIFA Council and president of the Philippine Football Association, became the chairman of the AFC's newly established Organizing Committee for the Asian Cup, which took the lead in organizing the Asian Cup and negotiated with the Qatar Organizing Committee to resolve related matters.
Recently, Alaneta led members of the AFC Asian Cup Organizing Committee to Doha to coordinate with Qatar and implement the competition and other related matters. Among them, the most striking thing is the game time. Earlier, it was reported that the vice chairman of the AFC competition committee, Iraqi Massoud, revealed to the media that the 2023 Asian Cup is likely to start at the end of December this year. However, this news has been proven to be false. What is now certain is that the 2023 Asian Cup will definitely take place in January 2024. The AFC Organizing Committee has negotiated with the Qatar Organizing Committee on the specific time and has reported to FIFA, and is currently awaiting confirmation from FIFA.
Previously, FIFA had drawn up a FIFA calendar for the next four years starting in 2023, the FIFA-designated window for national team competitions, and the 18th Asian Cup was originally played from June 16 to July 16, 2023, in this FIFA calendar. Now that the tournament has been played in Qatar, the time of the match has changed from summer to winter, and FIFA needs to confirm that teams participating in the Asian Cup can call up overseas players to return to the team.
After FIFA confirms and officially announces it, AFC will announce the specific group draw time together with Qatar, and the draw will be held in Doha.
The U23 Asian Cup is definitely after the Asian Cup
In addition to the schedule of the 18th Asian Cup in 2023, the final stage of the 6th U23 Asian Cup and the Asian qualifiers for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games have basically made it clear when it will be held, and it will definitely be played after the Asian Cup.
According to the decision of the AFC Competition Committee meeting last September, the sixth edition of the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers was scheduled to be played from September 4 to 12, 2023, and the final stage was scheduled to be played in Qatar from January 10 to 28, 2024, but the timing of the U23 Asian Cup had to be readjusted because Qatar won the right to host the 2023 Asian Cup and the competition time was moved to winter. In January this year, it was reported that in order to ensure that the 2023 Asian Cup can be played smoothly in January 2024, the U23 Asian Cup may be brought forward to December this year, and correspondingly, the qualifying time may also be brought forward to August 2023.
However, after coordination and study between the AFC and the Qatar Organising Committee, it was finally decided that the qualifying time would remain unchanged, while the final stage of the competition would be scheduled to be held after the Asian Cup in February or March 2024, but the more specific competition time has not yet been finalized. This is mainly because if the qualifiers are brought forward to August 2023, because it is not the FIFA-designated national team competition window, many participating teams will most likely not be able to recruit overseas school-age players to participate, which has been opposed by many member associations, and the original September 4-12 is because it is played during the FIFA-designated national team competition window, so there is no problem.
As for the timing of the final stage, it is currently the biggest headache for the AFC. After the time of the Asian Cup is confirmed by FIFA, there is no problem for each team to recruit overseas players, and the U23 Asian Cup is held after the Asian Cup, many participating teams will face the problem of recruiting overseas players, because there is no FIFA designated national team competition window in February 2024, and although there is in March 2024, the time is shorter, only 9 days before and after, which cannot meet the minimum 18-day competition cycle of the U23 Asian Cup. And the national team itself needs to participate in the 2026 World Cup qualifiers. What's more, the AFC Champions League schedule for the 2023-2024 season has been drawn up, with the knockout 1/8 final in February. This means that some players competing in the Under-23 Asian Cup may not be able to represent their club teams in the AFC Champions League.
Therefore, the AFC and Qatar are still coordinating the specific match time of the U23 Asian Cup.