bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Jonathan White

Anyone who has watched this season’s AFC Cup will be aware of how unusual it is as a competition.
Take group F where Cambodian side Nagaworld have let in 20 goals in four games but are not bottom.
Instead, they sit ahead of Yangon United on head to head results.
The most competitive group is the all-East Asian group I. Hong Kong’s Wofoo Tai Po and North Korean side April 25 are both on six points each, with Tai Po’s fellow Hong Kong Premier League side Kitchee SC joining Taiwanese university side Hang Yuen on zero points after two games.
The standings are a credit to Tai Po and something of a badge of shame for Kitchee, a team that was playing in the AFC Champions League group stages at this time last season.
That Hong Kong’s richest club are only kept from the bottom thanks to a student side’s inferior goal difference is a worry with only one team going through from the group stage.


Tai Po’s opening two games, both 4-2 wins at Mong Kok Stadium, have given them a chance to do just that, with the big tests coming when the top two meet in Hong Kong at the end of the month before meeting the group favourites in North Korea in mid-May.
Given Kitchee’s absence from the AFC Champions League this season, where they fell in qualifying, there was a chance that there were going to be two Hong Kong teams in the AFC Cup. Tai Po ensured this by beating another North Korean side Ryomyong over the two legs of their play-offs.


Had the decisive penalty shoot-out finished in the visitor’s favour it would have meant two North Korean sides in the four-team East Asia group. These geographical zones are understandable. First, there’s the lack of money in many of the member associations, which makes anything but travel in the neighbouring region prohibitively expensive.
Secondly, On one half of the draw, the West Asian teams provide one of the AFC Cup finalists, with the other coming from the other zones: East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia. The large number of Southeast Asian teams in the competition means that they face a more complicated route into the latter stages.
With only one team through from each zone, representation is guaranteed but that comes at the cost of the best teams overall making the latter stages.


While it is understandable, it is no consolation. The two Hong Kong teams mean that Tai Po and Kitchee will meet five times this season. That’s not much of a test for either side.
Last year, Benfica de Macau were in the AFC Cup, again with two North Korean sides. There’s no Macanese representative this time out. With the league champions unable to get a club licence from the AFC because they play at a shared venue, Macau misses out on continental football this year and surely they will suffer for that?
Similarly, there was no guaranteed spot in the group stages of the Champions League for a Hong Kong side because of a change to the HKFA’s AFC coefficient.

These things mean that the AFC’s mission for its “Top Level Competitions” offering the “necessary platforms that raise the standard of competitions in Asia” falls short.
You could say the current AFC Cup format fails members such as Hong Kong, Macau or even Vietnam, whose Han Noi went from falling short in the AFC Champions League qualifiers against Chinese Super League side Shandong Luneng to opening their AFC Cup season with a 10-0 win over Nagaworld.
Who is that good for?

Change is perhaps something you can’t rely on in a body that saw its president re-elected unopposed earlier this year. Sheikh Salman had faced opposition from Qatar’s Saoud Al Mohannadi and Mohammad Khalfan Al Romaithi of the United Arab Emirates but both men withdrew in the run-up once Salman had declared he had the support of 40 of the AFC’s 47 members.
Maybe the appetite for change will increase if and when Salman runs again for the Fifa presidency.

He was defeated by Gianni Infantino in 2016 and did not stand for this year’s elections but he could in the future.
Then again, change is not the thing that the AFC is known for and maybe it has bigger issues than making its cup competitions more competitive: divisions between its members that go well beyond football, a failure to end the symbiosis between sport and politics, and a lack of increased transparency since the scandal that saw an end to former president Mohammed bin Hammam.
On second thoughts given Fifa’s own failure to act on any of these issues means the AFC’s vision “to be the world’s leading confederation” is coming to pass after all.


Asian Cup game against Hong Kong on, India says, despite team being locked out of stadium

AFC postpones draw for Saudi Arabia Asian Cup finals as Middle East conflict continues

Asian Champions League Elite: Iran’s Tractor FC in line for quarter-final in Saudi Arabia

Hong Kong football bosses scrambling for flights to India after Nepal friendly cancelled

Asian Football Confederation (AFC)

AFC Cup highlights Asian football has a long way to go to become ‘world’s leading confederation’

Hong Kong Premier League side Wofoo Tai Po celebrate after a penalty shoot-out win against Ryomyong SC in the AFC Cup play-off at Mong Kok Stadium. Photo: Felix Wong

FIFA President Gianni Infantino gestures ahead of the second leg of the AFC Champions League final football match, between Iran's Persepolis and Japan's Kashima Antlers on November 10, 2018, at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Anthony Modeste (C in white) from Tianjin Quanjian won a header from Kitchee SC players, from left, Kim Bong-jin, Alexander Akande; and Krisztián Vadócz at the AFC Champions League group E match Kitchee versus Tianjin Quanjian at the Mong Kok Stadium in Mong Kok. Tianjin Quanjian won 1-0. 04APR18 SCMP / Felix Wong

FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 26, 2016 file photo, FIFA presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa of Bahrain looks on during the extraordinary FIFA congress in Zurich, Switzerland. Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman of Bahrain will face at least one challenger for re-election, though not an expected opponent from Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates soccer federation says Mohamed Khalfan Al Romaithi announced his presidential run on the deadline on Thursday, Dec. 6 2018 to enter the April 6 vote. No candidate was announced by the Saudi Arabia Football Federation which had targeted the AFC presidency (AP Photo/Michael Probst, file)

Sport

Hong Kong


Asia’s second cup competition complicated by geographic spread and standards of member leagues
Work needs done for AFC to reach its lofty visions and missions



Asia’s second cup competition complicated by geographic spread and standards of member leagues


Hong Kong Premier League

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

The East Stand

Opinion

AFC Cup highlights Asian football has a long way to go to become ‘world’s leading confederation’

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Asia’s second cup competition complicated by geographic spread and standards of member leagues Work needs done for AFC to reach its lofty visions and missions

Asia’s second cup competition complicated by geographic spread and standards of member leagues

Work needs done for AFC to reach its lofty visions and missions