Maldives to Host 2014 AFC Challenge Cup

The 2014 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup will be hosted in the Maldives, here the AFC competitions committee announced on Wednesday.

India, advice which was among four countries that had submitted bids, remedy was not considered since it had already hosted the tournament in 2008.

India was interested in hosting the tournament as the winner would have earned direct qualification to the Asian Cup 2015 in Australia.

The committee also approved DPR Korea’s exclusion from future AFC Challenge Cups and maintain automatic qualification for top three teams from the 2015 edition in the next edition.

Taking into consideration the views of AFC Technical Committee, the members decided to maintain a format of festival for U-14 age group rather than organising AFC U-14 Championship.