Asian qualifying matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup scheduled to hold in October and November will now be played in 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This was jointly announced by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on Wednesday, saying that the matches scheduled during the FIFA international windows will now take place in 2021.
“With the aim of protecting the health and safety of all participants, FIFA and the AFC will continue to work together to closely monitor the situation in the region and to identify new dates for the respective qualifying matches,” the two organizations’ joint statement read.
Asian countries are currently in the second round of the World Cup qualifying season, which started in September last year. The competition was supposed to restart in March, but the outbreak of COVID-19 forced FIFA and the AFC to reschedule matches for later.