AFC Nations League?

Snep

Would you like AFC consider new competition similar to European Nations League, our very own AFC Nations League? It would be very interesting if this materialise as apart from the top AFC nations rest of them hardly plays any friendlies and even if they do organise them on FIFA sanctioned days they are hardly against any exciting opponents, to top it off there is no importance attached to the friendly.. Please share your views on what you think.

Came across this interesting thread,

https://forum.insidesport.com.au/2599282/AFC-Nations-League 

ashindia

Not an good idea. Same teams will be playing each other. Just overkill. 

indian_gooner

We need tournament like this so that all the nations are active on international days mandatory.

munna219777

AFC  is struggling to get WC Qualifiers and AFC / ACL  done in time.
 Football in Asia needs to develop more commercially and politically ti get a Nations League type tournament.  
European countries have a lucrative TV deal and sponsorship to see their national team playing. We should not compare Asia with them.
AFC have political issues.  Many countries cannot play in their home ground due to security concerns. 
Idea is good, it will take few years to materialise 

G_K

Fixture congestion is not a problem. There are 10 matchdays in an year for a national team and if you exclude qualification matches, there are enough match days available for the league, but there will be very few friendly matches.

One of the potential problems is the lack of incentive. UEFA Nations League provides a backdoor for EURO & World Cup. We can't restructure qualification rules for World Cup because we just have a few spots. So if Nations League is implemented, it should a quadrennial tournament, so that it can link up with Asian Cup qualification only.

The most important problems are ofcourse the poor brand value & market of Asian football, political issues between AFC nations and travel. There are nations which very rarely play any match in AFC and some which can't even play at home, unlike UEFA. Regarding travel, to provide TV broadcast, there should be matches everyday, that means 2 matches in a gap of 3-4 days. Usually on FIFA Days week, we have matches on Thursday and Tuesday.

The only positive is that it helps less glamorous and ofcourse lazy associations like AIFF to not miss FIFA matchdays and makes them play compulsorily.

indian_gooner

if travel is the main concern, then for cost cutting measures divide the countires based on geographically closer ones.

Nagendra

Nations league format will not work for Asia.. Also if format is based on geographically , we end up playing same teams and most likely 1 or 2 SAAF Nations will be in our group..

AFC can conduct something similar to Asian Cup format once in every 4 years with different name . Other sports like cricket have this ( World Cup & World Championship) .

indian_gooner

Actually the main aim was to force the Asian countries to play on FIFA calendar days as every other countries do. 
Since it is not a friendly, all the nations would end up playing on those days without any excuse.

kartik91

And that is precisely the reason why it will be good for our lazy ass federation. Our NT will play regularly, the coach will have some work to do and hopefully we will be able to finalize some players at crucial positions.

munna219777

We have SAFF Cup which AIFF either try to postpone or send B Team like last time in 2018.

AIFF declined to send team for Asian Games, SAF Games.

6 June 2017 was the last time India hosted an International team (Nepal) on FIFA match dates. Othe r teams manage Home and away Friendlies but either we waste the window or focus only on away games.

We did organise tri nation / Intercontinental tournament  but single Home Friendlies on FIFA dates are a vital cog in regular preparedness of National Team.

Entire focus is only on ISL !!! 9 out of 12 months in a calendar year this player coming to this Franchise and that. Nothing about actual playing.

indian_gooner

whenever UEFA nations league happen, i think of AFC nations league.

https://www.theasiangame.net/opinion-is-it-time-asia-introduced-a-nations-league/