{"id":7306,"date":"2026-11-03T08:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/afc-postpones-2027-asian-cup-till-december\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T08:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T08:16:08","slug":"afc-postpones-2027-asian-cup-till-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/afc-postpones-2027-asian-cup-till-december\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC postpones 2027 Asian Cup till December"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"66.70692431562\">\n<p>The 2027 Asian Cup football tournament in Saudi Arabia will be postponed from January to December due to \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d in the region, the continent\u2019s governing body said on Tuesday.\n<\/p>\n<p>A number of big sports events in Saudi Arabia have been cancelled or postponed in recent weeks following Houthi attacks on the country.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe organising committee for AFC Asian Cup approved rescheduling the flagship national team tournament in light of the current exceptional circumstances arising from developments in the region,\u201d the Asian Football Confederation said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n<p>The AFC also cited \u201csubstantial logistical complexities and travel disruptions\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe new dates of the tournament will be presented to FIFA for approval,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<p>The continental showpiece was originally scheduled to take place from January 7 to February 5 next year. <\/p>\n<div class=\"read-also\">\n<header>Related News<\/header>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The new dates are December 23, 2027, to January 21, 2028.<\/p>\n<p>Local organisers insisted last month that the Asian Cup was \u201con schedule\u201d, despite growing fears for the fate of the tournament.\n<\/p>\n<p>The Saudi cities of Jeddah, Riyadh and Al Khobar are set to stage the month-long competition.\n<\/p>\n<p>The decision to move the tournament back almost a year came after \u201cextensive discussions and close consultation\u201d between Saudi officials and the AFC, the governing body said.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cExceptional circumstances have been created for the organisation and delivery of the competition as originally scheduled, making the postponement necessary in the interest of all participating teams, officials, spectators and other stakeholders,\u201d it said.\n<\/p>\n<p>AFP\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"14.852589641434\">\n<p> All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contact\">Contact: <a href=\"\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#50243835353439243f221020253e33383e377e333f3d\"> <span class=\"__cf_email__\" data-cfemail=\"dda9b5b8b8b9b4a9b2af9dada8b3beb5b3baf3beb2b0\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/span> <\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Source: <\/p>\n<div class=\"nSourse\">Punch Newspapers &#8211; Latest News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2027 Asian Cup football tournament in Saudi Arabia will be postponed from January to December due to \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d in the region, the continent\u2019s governing body said on Tuesday.&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}