Xinhua News Agency, Kuala Lumpur, June 17 (reporter Lin Hao, Yu Wei) FIFA announced on the 17th that the draw ceremony for the top 40 of the 2022 Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers will be held on July 17 at the headquarters of the Asian Football Association in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Chinese team confirmed it as the first team.
The Asian Football League said that the 40 teams in the top 40 stage will be divided into 8 groups, with 5 teams in each group for double-cycle matches. The competition will be held between September 5, 2019 and June 9, 202020. the first place of the eight groups and the second place of the four best scores will be promoted to the last round of the Asian qualifiers, namely the top 12.
FIFA also confirmed the division of the top 40 teams according to the FIFA ranking on June 14, 2019. 40 teams are divided into 5 gears and 8 teams in each gear.
In this issue, the Chinese team ranked 73rd in the world and 8th in the affiliated teams of the Asian Football Association. Therefore, it is the same as Iran, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia ranked first.
39 of the teams participating in the top 40 have been confirmed. In the first stage of the Qatar World Cup Asian qualifiers, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Guam, Malaysia and Mongolia were ranked out.
The Last quota will be generated between Macao, China and Sri Lanka. The Asian Football League said that the result of the competition was still being confirmed.
FIFA said that the Top 40 was also the qualifier of China Asian Cup in 2023. The team who is promoted to the top 12 will be qualified for the Asian Cup. In addition to these 12 teams, the top 24 teams will compete for the remaining 12 Asian Cup seats separately.