National Team

World Cup qualifiers to be postponed?

by
Rami Abou Diab
24/06/2021

The third round of the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers is scheduled to start on September 2, 2021.

However, sources within the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have revealed to Iraqi journalist Ali Nouri that the AFC is thinking of postponing the third round of qualifiers to March. In this case, the games could be played in one central venue for each group.

According to Iraqi journalist Ali Nouri, his sources in the @theafcdotcom state the AFC will postpone the World Cup qualifiers until next March, provided all matches in the two groups will be held in two neutral countries. 🇮🇶🇮🇶 pic.twitter.com/5Z0PyZH270
— Hassanin Mubarak (@hassaninmubarak) June 24, 2021

In 1993, the 1994 World Cup qualifiers were split in two, home games played in a central venue and away games at another stadium. No idea yet on whether the round will be reduced to just one leg or not.

To add context to this, yesterday the AFC's spokesman @bahran_nidal was on Ali Nouri's 'Super' sports show and spoke about the AFC's discussions over the next stage of the qualifiers. Nidal Bahran stated that at present, the format was home and away https://t.co/1zvThP9MsZ https://t.co/4L4OvBHpLd
— Hassanin Mubarak (@hassaninmubarak) June 24, 2021