Interview: AFC hails Qatar World Cup legacies, confident of China's football development

2024-01-16 17:24:32

by Sportswriters Xiao Shiyao, Gong Bing and Yue Dongxing

DOHA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) 

As the AFC Asian Cup kicked off in Doha last Friday, Qatar hosted its first major football event after the unforgettable 2022 FIFA World Cup, with 24 teams gathered here to fight for the crown of Asian football.

In a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua, AFC general secretary Datuk Seri Windsor John expressed his satisfaction with the tournament's preparations, saying that the legacy of the great World Cup is set to continue during the Asian Cup.

CARRYING ON WORLD CUP LEGACIES

"Qatar was selected to be the host on October 2022, so that was a short time for us to prepare for a major competition. Thankfully, what we have in Qatar in terms of infrastructure, in terms of experiences of hosting World Cup, helped us start at a very high level," Windsor said. 

"If we look at the short turnaround to organize this event, I would say that we are in a very good position today to start the match," he added.

The AFC senior official spoke highly of the World Cup legacies. " During Qatar World Cup, there were six [Asian] teams played in the World Cup stadiums, so that six teams benefited from the best facilities ever. Now we have the 18 teams that did not play the World Cup, so they have all the motivation to do their best."

"Good facilities help improve the performance on the field. We are using seven World Cup stadiums. The players, the match officials, and the fans will all benefit from it, because they are now going to experience being part of the atmosphere that they may have missed out during the World Cup," he noted.

"A great legacy on two parts, first the infrastructure and also the people. The World Cup has trained a lot of people to perform at the highest level and that we also benefited from them. The great legacy is to continue during the Asian Cup," he added.

During the 2022 World Cup, AFC teams set the best record ever to have three teams reached the knockout stage, which also boosted Windsor's confidence for a successful Asian Cup.

"It simply means that the work that has been done in Asia, by the AFC, by the member associations themselves, is bearing fruits now. That's the motivation which will help Asian football grow. The AFC president Shaikh Salman's vision is to make sure that the Asian teams do well on the world stage. Then, they must start doing well in our competitions first, and the Asian Cup is one of the biggest platforms for them to showcase their ability," Windsor said.

"There is no bigger tournament than the Asian Cup in Asia. You are not only looking at the national teams, but also looking at some top players playing in this tournament. So I speak to the fans: don't miss out, because there's really going to be hopefully 51 exciting matches," he added.

WE WANT CHINA BACK

Windsor noted that the AFC has been following China's battle against corruption in football. 

"We all know what happened in China, very unfortunate, but they have taken decisive decision to do what is necessary and brought in new people. The newly elected CFA president Song Kai and AFC president Salman had a good meeting, where president Salman gave his commitment of the AFC to continue to support and develop football in China. We understand they need some time because it's not only about electing the president. The president needs to put a team together, needs to make sure that all the regulations, all the necessary government structure is in place," he said.

"That's the time that we have given them to put everything in order and then come back and show the plan. This is the plan that we have for China, and then we will definitely support China's plan. There's tremendous potential in China, we need the CFA to harness this potential and to raise China up again to a top level. Where China is today, I think they cannot get any worse, they can only go up. The opportunities are great. Let's not look only at the back, we also need to look forward," he said, showing his faith for Chinese football.

On behalf of the AFC, Windsor highlighted the importance of the cooperation between the AFC and CFA, which had been largely affected when China gave up the hosting rights of the Asian Cup due to the Covid-19 pandemic two years ago.

"We are expecting China to come back because they used to host a lot of big events for the AFC. We all know that they have a great interest to host big events, so we want China to come back," he said.

"China has been a great partner to the AFC, we know that this will continue in the future. We understand that they have to do a lot of changes within the association, which means that they need to focus internally first. We believe that once they sort out their internal structures and start to run, we will have a lot of opportunities to work in China. The AFC already had a discussion with the CFA to see how they can host AFC competitions. 

"The AFC president has also given his word to the CFA president that AFC will in future bring events to China once they are ready. So we are pleased that they are putting things back in order. We are pleased to hear that they will be bidding for events. We always wish Chinese the very best, especially in their national team competitions and in their leagues. So the future is bright for China, we just hope that they will take advantage and start coming back.

"We would like China to put the bid for the future Asian Cup because wonderful stadiums have been built. Once the bidding is open for the next Asian Cup, we hope that they will also participate in the bid to host," Windsor said. 

The AFC general secretary also gave his advice for Chinese football. "No association can develop football without the support of the government. We hope that with the support of the top leadership in China, the CFA to take advantage of the opportunities that are available to put in place a good structure."

"If you want a strong national team, the work starts below. Once the youth structure is good with the right academy, with the right coaches, then we need to create a good strong league that will further develop the players to the clubs," he said of the structure. 

"I think this recipe is not a secret. We all know this recipe. Our advice from the AFC would be to strengthen the grassroots, the youth development, good coaches are important to make good players, so invest in coaching."

In addition, Windsor also explained the AFC's policy of introducing more foreign players into the Asian Champions League. "The introduction of the regulations on the foreign players means there is no limit to foreign players, as other teams that come from the other confederation have no limits to their foreign players. If we want our teams to play very well in the Club World Cup, we need to make these changes."

"But it doesn't mean we force everyone to increase. Make the assessment first. If you feel that the introduction of foreign players will help improve the league and the local players, then please go ahead." he added.

Windsor also spoke highly of the new format of 2026 World Cup Asian qualifiers. "The format has to be changed because the number of slots have increased. Now that we have 8.5 slots, we need to have the final round of the qualifiers with more teams."

"It's a format that allows teams to perform and be selected for the World Cup. We hope that teams like China will take advantage of this 8.5 slots for Asia," he noted.