AFC plans to launch Nations League and change qualification system for FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup

The Asian Football Confederation is preparing to make a significant change to the national team competition system with a proposal to launch the AFC Nations League starting in 2030. The tournament will be directly linked to the qualification pathways for the FIFA World Cup and the AFC Asian Cup.

According to a proposal from the AFC that ESPN has seen, the tournament will take place every two years, featuring Asian national teams divided into three levels. The first and second levels will each include 18 teams, while the third level will consist of 11 teams divided into three groups.

In the World Cup qualifying rounds, the top-seeded teams will play 12 matches, with six at home and six away. The top six teams will qualify directly for the FIFA World Cup, while the teams ranked seventh to tenth will enter a playoff stage in a league format, with two teams qualifying for the tournament, while the third-placed team will move to the continental playoff.

The proposed system differs from the qualification system for the FIFA World Cup 2026, which saw the 18 qualified teams divided into three groups in the third stage, with the top two teams from each group qualifying directly for the finals, while other teams moved on to a playoff stage.

In the editions linked to the AFC Asian Cup, scheduled to start in 2030 according to the proposal, each team in the first tier and the top six teams in the second tier will compete in the qualifiers for the continental tournament. The proposal also includes the establishment of the knockout stages of the Nations League, where the best eight teams from the first tier qualify for the quarter-finals, then the semi-finals and the final, with the final taking place at a neutral venue.

The system also stipulates automatic promotion and relegation between the three levels, whereby the teams finishing in the last two positions are relegated and the top two teams are promoted, in addition to holding play-off matches between some national teams to determine the remaining promoted and relegated teams.

The AFC will not rely on geographical divisions for its new proposal due to the differing number of teams and competition levels between regions. Instead, teams will be distributed into different levels during the draw to ensure more balanced matchups.

Before the official launch, the AFC intends to hold a trial version during the 2028-2029 seasons, with the levels of national teams determined based on the results of the joint qualifiers, instead of the FIFA ranking, in order to achieve greater fairness in the distribution of teams.

Details of the proposal are set to be presented to the member associations of the Asian Football Confederation during a scheduled meeting on Tuesday, paving the way for the necessary steps to implement the new system.