Home and away for Asian World Cup qualifiers

Home and away for Asian World Cup qualifiers

ZURICH (AFP): The final Asian World Cup qualifying round will
be played on a home and away basis, soccer's governing body FIFA
decided Monday.

Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Singapore had bid to hold a finals
tournament as in past Asian qualifying competitions.

But FIFA's World Cup Organizing Committee, chaired by Lennart
Johansson, decided against a single tournament venue Monday.

Saudi Arabia and South Korea -- who played in the 1994 USA
World Cup -- were seeded.

They will be kept apart when two groups of five teams are
drawn Tuesday.

The other eight which will go into Tuesday's draw are China,
Iran, Kazakhstan, Japan, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and
Uzbekistan.

The winner of each group will automatically qualify and the
runners-up in each group will play-off for the right to directly
qualify for the World Cup finals in France next year.

The loser of the playoff will face Australia, the Oceania Zone
winners, on a home and away basis for a place in France.

The decision to abandon the tournament format met with a mixed
reception from Chinese officials.

"It's a big change," said Wang Junsheng, the Chinese Football
Association general secretary. "The timing for the second round
had been decided last year and our league has been arranged
according to that schedule. It will take at least eight to 10
weeks for our league to finish.

"We will have to re-arrange everything, including the league
and the preparation for the national team.

"Frankly, though, home and away is a fair competition, but our
problem is with the timing," he said.

Chinese coach Qi Wusheng was pragmatic.

"I have no choice," he said. "The decision has been made so we
will have to get ready and we will have to get the team into camp
as soon as possible.

"The fans will be happy about this and, of course, the players
will have a good opportunity to play well in front of their own
people," he said.

Venue

A decision will be made Aug. 12 whether the European Group 9
World Cup qualifying match between Albania and Northern Ireland
can be played in Albania as scheduled, FIFA announced Monday.

Football's international governing body said it had decided to
wait another three weeks before deciding whether the match should
be switched from the Albanian capital Tirana.

The match is due to be played in Tirana on September 10 but
has been put in doubt by the volatile political situation in
Albania.

Two of Albania's previous home matches, against Germany and
Ukraine, were played in Spain for security reasons.

The bureau of FIFA's World Cup organizing committee said
recent developments in Albania necessitated the further delay in
making a decision.

The FIFA bureau also decided that three qualifying matches
postponed for various reasons, Gabon vs Sierra Leone, Syria vs
Krygzstan and Yemen vs Uzbekistan should be played for reasons of
principle, even though the results can no longer affect the
qualifying process.