AFC Awards Challenge Cup Hosting Rights to the Maldives

The AFC Challenge Cup 2014 is not going out of south asia. This time, Maldives won the hosting rights after Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal hosted the previous editions. Today the AFC Competitions Committee decided to give the hosting rights of the 2014 AFC Challenge Cup to Maldives. The other applicants were Tajikistan, Philippines and India, but AFC shortlisted only the Philippines and the Maldives. By virtue of this decision, the Maldives is qualifying automatically to the main event of the Challenge Cup and leaves the other 18 members to fight for other 7 places. The Committee also decided to exclude North Korea from the Challenge Cup. In addition, the winners of the 2016 and 2018 Challenge Cups will not qualify to the Asia Cup 2019. Instead, they should enter into play-offs with the best two teams which will fail to qualify to the Asia Cup. AFC has not announced the date for the draw of the qualifier, however, some reports say the draw would be held tomorrow.