China preparing to bid for Asian Cup again in 2023
Print Edition
CHINA is preparing to bid for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, the continent’s biggest football championship, the country’s top soccer authority said.
The Chinese Football Association is soliciting input for a possible application to host the tournament, it said in a letter to its members posted on its website.
The bid will require at least six cities and eight stadiums to host a total of 51 competitions in the month-long contest, which is held every four years.
Cities must have an international airport and at least 10 five-star hotels to be considered for inclusion in the 2023 bid, the CFA statement said.
China’s football team is languishing in 84th place in the FIFA world rankings. It is on the verge of elimination for Russia 2018 after a 0-0 draw with China’s Hong Kong in November.
President Xi Jinping has called on the nation to up its game with the goals of eventually hosting and winning a World Cup — a tournament in which it has only appeared once, in 2002.
China hosted the Asian Cup in 2004 and reached the final, but lost 1-3 to neighbor and rival Japan.
Meanwhile, Bahraini royal Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, a FIFA presidential hopeful, has launched his campaign for the job with a promise to make the global soccer body rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
“FIFA today is a genuine Phoenix project: under my leadership, we shall employ all professional means to lift the organization out of its ashes and guarantee a solid lasting and successful rebirth,” Sheikh Salman, the Asian Football Confederation chief, said in a statement posted on his website.
“Only by strictly separating the generation of funds and supervising the flow of all monies spent can we guarantee the rebirth of a new FIFA,” he said.
Five candidates — Sheikh Salman, UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino, former FIFA vice president Prince Ali bin Al Hussein of Jordan, South African business tycoon Tokyo Sexwale and former FIFA official Jerome Champagne of France — have been campaigning for months.
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