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The AFC Competitions Committee met on the sidelines of the ongoing AFC Under-22 Championship on Saturday to discuss and decided changes to the composition of the number of final contestants in the AFC Asian Cup.
Under the new format, Asia’s showpiece event – AFC Asian Cup – will have 24 teams in the tournament proper instead of 16. The 2014 AFC Challenge Cup, to be held in Maldives in May this year, will be the last edition of this second tier competition.
Furthermore, the qualification rounds for FIFA World Cup qualifiers and AFC Asian Cup qualifiers will be merged for the preliminary round. Depending on the number of entries, the Member Associations will be divided into eight groups after preliminary stages. The eight group winners and four second best teams will qualify for the FIFA World Cup final round of qualifiers and also the AFC Asian Cup finals. Presently, only ten teams battle it out in the final round of FIFA World Cup qualifiers.
The next best 24 teams from the preliminary qualification round (24 teams) will compete for the remaining slots in the AFC Asian Cup finals in six groups of four teams each.
The final rounds of FIFA World Cup qualifiers and AFC Asian Cup qualifiers will be separated.
