The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), in consultation with FIFA, on Friday announced the proposed match dates for the remaining matches of Round 2 in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 Asian Qualifiers.
Match Days 7 and 8 are now scheduled to take place on October 8 and 13, 2020 respectively while Match Days 9 and 10 are due to kick off on November 12 and 17, 2020, said in a statement.
Accordingly, the Indian national football team's postponed qualifier against Asian champions Qatar at home was rescheduled to October 8.
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India then take on Bangladesh away on November 12 and host Afghanistan on November 17.
India are already out of contention for a berth in the 2022 World Cup, but the Blue Tigers are still in the reckoning for a spot in the Asian Cup.
The latest decision has been taken with a view to complete the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2 by November 2020 and to commence the subsequent World Cup 2022 Asian Qualifiers Final Round as well.
The continental body is also targeting to complete the play-off matches for the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Round 3 Qualifiers by the March 2021 match.
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The statement also said that AFC will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all teams, officials, fans and stakeholders.
Should there be a need to reassess the match schedules due to the ever-evolving impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the body will notify all parties.
