Was the Asean Football Federation (AFF) caught unawares by Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s recent announcement of the creation of the Fifa Asean Cup?
It has been nine days since Infantino’s surprise announcement, made moments after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Fifa and Asean during the 47th Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 26 to help develop football in Southeast Asia.
Since then, AFF has yet to issue a statement.
Twentytwo13 understands that there was no communication between Fifa and AFF before the announcement. Twentytwo13 reached out to AFF on Oct 27 and followed up with an email on Oct 30, but there has been no reply.
More tellingly, Fifa’s statement included a paragraph which read: “Fifa will engage all football stakeholders, including the Asian Football Confederation, the Asean Football Federation and the Fifa Member Associations of the Asean member states, with the precise format of the tournament to be finalised in due course.”
The AFF’s inaugural tournament was the Tiger Cup in 1996. Since then, it has been renamed several times – the AFF Suzuki Cup (2008-2020), the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup in 2022 and the Asean Championship Mitsubishi Electric Cup last year.
It remains to be seen how this new tournament will impact the long-standing AFF competition, which is set to be renamed the Asean Hyundai Cup from 2026.
Infantino said the new tournament would be held during Fifa’s international calendar, giving it a significant advantage over the AFF competition, which is traditionally staged outside the designated international dates – meaning clubs are not obligated to release their players for the competition.
There are also questions about how the new tournament will affect Australia, which, while geographically distant from Southeast Asia, became a full AFF member in 2013 – seven years after joining the Asian Football Confederation, having left the Oceania Football Confederation as a direct pathway to World Cup qualification.
Although allowed to play in the AFF age-group tournaments, the Aussies have not been allowed to play in the senior AFF meet as they are seen as “too strong”.
