CAF president Issa Hayatou announced in his speech in Khartoum:
"On February 12, a proposal was forwarded to the FIFA Executive Committee to include results of CHAN matches in the FIFA rankings."
I doubt FIFA will agree since they don't include CHAN matches in the rankings because CHAN rules restrict the eligibility of players.
However, politics are usually more important than football.
Maybe AFC should take note and ask FIFA to "upgrade" AFC Challenge Cup matches from friendlies to continental qualifiers since the winners advance to the Asian Cup final tournament and most of the teams involved in the Challenge Cup don't participate in the main qualifiers.
No to CHAN matches. YES to AFC Challenge Cup matches. A CHAN game is not an A game, and it's a sstupid proposal. Some nations will be able to field their entire A squad, while others won't be able to field hardly any of it if any at all. Imagine a country losing a seeding in a qualifying comepetition because country X defeated a skeleton Ivory Coast team and got a ton of points?
ReplyDeleteEdgar,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure this may have been addressed somewhere else...but... do you know if FIFA has given consideration to adding another category to the rankings for Regional tournaments such as the East Asian Cup and given them a slighter higher multiplier (e.g. times 2) instead of treating them as Friendlies? If not, I think you should use your power of influence and send an encouraging e-mail. Surely FIFA can give accreditation to such tournaments.
Clifton,
DeleteYou grossly overestimate my influence. This is not something I can do - it's up to federations and confederations.
Yeah I know. I really like the idea of it though and can't imagine the federations / confederations even bothering with such a topic. Great work on this blog. Thanks for your efforts.
DeleteI will give it a try though - I will write to federations :)
DeleteI wrote something about it:
DeleteShould FIFA upgrade regional tournaments?
Clifton, just to let you know I've contacted the FAs involved. Curious to see if I receive any answer.
DeleteGreat Edgar. Thanks. I also have a letter just about ready to go to the Football Federation Australia.
Delete