Asian Football Confederation

Asian Football Confederation
Asian Football Confederation
Abbreviation	AFC
Motto	The Future is Asia
Formation	8 May 1954 (59 years ago)
Type	Sports organization
Headquarters	Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Region served	Asia
Membership	47 member associations
President	Salman Al-Khalifa
Vice-president	Zhang Jilong
General Secretary	Alex Soosay
Parent organization	FIFA
Website	www.The-AFC.com

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football in Asia. It has 47 member countries, mostly located on the Asian continent. All the transcontinental countries with territory in both Europe and Asia are members of UEFA (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey). Israel is also a UEFA member even though it lies entirely in Asia. On the other hand, Australia, formerly in the OFC, has been in the AFC since 2006, and the Oceanian island of Guam, a territory of the United States, is also a member of AFC.

One of FIFA's six continental confederations, the AFC was formed officially on 8 May 1954 in Manila, Philippines, on the sidelines of the second Asian Games. The 12 founder members were Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea Republic, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam.^[3] The main headquarters is located in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The current president is Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

Members [edit]

The AFC has 46 member associations split into four regions.^[3] Below shows the member national associations of the regional federations.

1: Quasi-member & associate AFC member
2: Under consideration as a quasi-member & non-AFC member^[4]

Former members [edit]

Israel Football Association 1954–1974; joined UEFA in 1994 due to the fact that several AFC teams refused to play against them
Football Federation of Kazakhstan 1998–2002; joined UEFA in 2002

Competitions [edit]

The AFC runs the Asian Cup, a competition for the national football teams of Asia held every four years, as well as the Asian World Cup Qualifying Tournament and the AFC Challenge Cup. It also runs the Asian Olympics qualifying tournament. The AFC also runs three levels of annual international club competitions. The most prestigious (and oldest of the current AFC club competitions) is the AFC Champions League tournament, based on the UEFA Champions League, formed in 2002/03 with the amalgamation of the Asian Champions Cup and the Asian Cup Winners Cup. (An Asian Super Cup competition between the winners of these two major tournaments ended with the birth of the AFC Champions League.) The other competitions branched off this in 2004 when the 'Vision Asia' blueprint for development was launched. This led to the top fourteen AFC nations, the 'mature nations', sending their best teams to the AFC Champions League. The next 14 nations, the 'developing nations' qualify to send their teams to the AFC Cup.

The rest of the AFC-affiliated countries, the 'emerging nations' send their teams to the AFC President's Cup. The teams which qualify from each country are usually the champions and the cup winners.^[5] Currently there is no promotion and relegation between the different levels of nations.

The AFC plans to revamp 22 leagues in Asia, 10 of them by 2009–2012. This is due to the poor performance of Asian teams in the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The reforms include increasing transparency, increasing competitiveness, improving training facilities, and forcing the leagues to have a system of relegation and promotion.^[6]

The 10 leagues marked for reform are Australia, Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The proposal would mark a radical change in Australia, where professional leagues in all sports are organised on a model of franchised teams and closed league membership.

There are 12 AFC Nations that play in the UAFA organised Arab Nations Cup, namely: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Regional tournaments [edit]

Southeast Asia: ASEAN Football Championship (formerly known as the Tiger Cup prior to 2007 and AFF Suzuki Cup since 2008).
Central and South Asia:
- Central Asia: Officially only 4 countries in this region, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Kazakhstan left for UEFA). No official tournament held between countries in this region.
- South Asia: SAFF Championship.
East Asia: East Asian Football Championship.
West Asia: West Asian Football Federation Championship (Although not all West Asian Countries enter), Gulf Cup of Nations.

Current champions [edit]

Men's Asian Cup	Men's U-19	Men's U-16	Challenge Cup	Champions League	President's Cup	AFF	SAFF
Japan	South Korea	Uzbekistan	North Korea	Ulsan Hyundai	Istiqlol	Singapore	India
Women's Asian Cup	Women's U-19	Women's U-16	Futsal	AFC Cup	Futsal Club	EAFF	WAFF
Australia	Japan	Japan	Japan	Kuwait SC	Giti Pasand	China PR	Syria

Women's football in Asia [edit]

The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) is the section of the AFC who manage women's football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986 the ALFC merged with the AFC.^[7] The Asian Ladies Football Confederation helped organise the AFC Women's Asian Cup, first held in 1975, as well as the AFC's AFC U-19 Women's Championship and the AFC U-17 Women's Championship.

Sponsors [edit]

The following are the sponsors of AFC (named "AFC Partners"):

Awards [edit]

AFC Footballer of the Year [edit]

Main article: Asian Footballer of the Year

The Asian Footballer of the Year award is presented to the best football player from Asia. Officially awarded since 1994, its official name is Asian Football Confederation's Sanyo Player of the Year Award. Prior to 1994 it was awarded on an unofficial basis; the winners from 1988 to 1991 were chosen by IFFHS.

AFC International Footballer of the Year [edit]

Year	Name	Nation	Club
2012	Shinji Kagawa	Japan	Manchester United

AFC Women's Footballer of the Year [edit]

Year	Name	Nation	Club
1999	Sun Wen	China PR	Shanghai SVA
2003	Bai Jie	China PR	Washington Freedom
2004	Homare Sawa	Japan	NTV Beleza
2005	Natsuko Hara	Japan	NTV Beleza
2006	Ma Xiaoxu	China PR	Dalian Shide
2007	Ri Kum Suk	North Korea	4.25
2008	Homare Sawa	Japan	NTV Beleza
2010	Kate Gill	Australia	Perth Glory
2011	Aya Miyama	Japan	Okayama Yunogo Belle
2012	Aya Miyama	Japan	Okayama Yunogo Belle

AFC Young Footballer of the Year [edit]

Main article: Asian Young Footballer of the Year

The Asian Young Footballer of the Year award is presented to the best young football player from Asia. Officially awarded since 1995 with the first award being given to Omani player, Mohammed Al-Kathiri.

AFC Coach of the Year [edit]

Year	Name	Team
1994	Charnwit Polcheewin	Thai Farmers Bank FC
1995	Park Jong-Hwan	Cheonan Ilhwa Chunma
1996	Ma Yuanan	China women's national team
1997	Cha Bum-Kun	Korea Republic national team
1998	Takashi Kuwahara	Júbilo Iwata
1999	Mahmoud Rakhimov
2000	Philippe Troussier	Japan national team
2001	Nasser Al-Johar	Saudi Arabia national team
2002	Guus Hiddink	Korea Republic national team
2003	Cha Kyung-Bok	Seongnam Ilhwa Chunma
2004	Adnan Hamad	Iraq national team
2006	Choe Kwang-Sok	Korea DPR women's U-20 national team
2007	Rauf Inileev	Uzbekistan national team
2008	Akira Nishino	Gamba Osaka
2009	Huh Jung-Moo	Korea Republic national team
2010	Takeshi Okada	Japan national team
2011	Norio Sasaki	Japan women's national team
2012	Kim Ho-Gon	Ulsan Hyundai

AFC National Team of the Year [edit]

Year	National Team (men)	National Team (women)
2000	Japan
2001	China PR
2002	South Korea
2003	Iraq
2004	Iraq
2005	Japan
2006	Iraq
2007	Iraq	North Korea
2008	Japan	North Korea
2009	South Korea	Japan U-20
2010	Japan	Australia
2011	Japan	Japan
2012	Iraq	Japan

Summer Olympics [edit]

Legend

1st – Champions
2nd – Runners-up
3rd – Third place
4th – Fourth place
GS – Group stage
Q — Qualified for upcoming tournament
•• — Qualified but withdrew
• — Qualified
× — Did not enter / Withdrew from the Olympics or Withdrew from the Olympics / Banned
— Hosts

Men [edit]

Nation	1900	1904	1908	1912	1920	1924	1928	1936	1948	1952	1956	1960	1964	1968	1972	1976	1980	1984	1988	1992	1996	2000	2004	2008	2012	Total
Japan								QF			•		QF	3rd							•	QF	•	•	4th	9
South Korea									QF				•						•	•	•	•	QF	•	3rd	9
Australia											QF								QF	4th	•	•	QF	•		7
Iraq																	QF	•	•				4th			4
India									•	•	4th	•														4
China PR								•											•					•		3
Iran^{[notes 1]}													•		•	QF										3
Kuwait																	QF			•		•				3
Chinese Taipei									•			•														2
Israel														QF		QF										2
Qatar																		•		QF						2
Saudi Arabia																		•			•					2
Thailand											•			•												2
Afghanistan									•																	1
Myanmar															•											1
Indonesia											QF															1
Malaysia^{[notes 1]}															•											1
North Korea																QF										1
Syria																	•									1
United Arab Emirates																									•	1
Total	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	4	1	5	2	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	4	4	4	4	4	3	56

Women [edit]

Nation	1996	2000	2004	2008	2012	Total
Japan	•		QF	4th	2nd	4
China PR	2nd	•	•	QF		4
Australia		•	QF			2
North Korea				•	•	2
Total	2	2	3	3	2	12

Notes [edit]

^ ^a ^b Iran and Malaysia Qualified in 1980 but boycotted the event.