Redesigned football for the Asian Games after the confusion

Kuala Lumpur: A new draw for the men's football tournament at the Asian Games in Indonesia will take place on Wednesday after organizers have ruled out two countries in the first draw in early July.

The new draw will take place at the headquarters of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) here in Malaysia.

In the first draw of July 5, there were six groups of four nations, with the first two nations in these six groups, plus the top four third-place teams.

But the AFC ordered the Indonesian organizers to redesign after learning that the UAE and Palestine had been left out.

With this redraw, the number of participating teams will be 26. Groups A, C, D and F will have four nations each, and Groups B and E will each have five countries.

The Asian Games will run from August 18th to September 2nd, but group football matches will begin a few days before. 19659002] Meanwhile, Indonesia hopes to host the next Asian Ga These events will help revive the national football team in difficulty and will serve as a springboard to their qualification for the Paris Olympics of 2024. The federation National football was excluded from international football in 2015 due to government interference in its national league. , preventing them from qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and the 2019 Asian Cup.

Fifa lifted the ban in 2016, but the men's team is currently languishing at 164th rank World, split between Belize and Fiji, despite the huge popularity of the game In a country of more than 250 million inhabitants.

"The Asian Games are a starting point and PSSI (Indonesia Football Association) wants to go further than that.If we need to establish a short-term plan that would be the Olympics in 2024," Joko Driyono, vice president of the PSSI, said:

Driyono said that the PSSI and the government have committed over the next three to five years to improve the infrastructure for football at all levels to support the target.

Former coach of Spain Under-21 Luis Milla was appointed director of Indonesia in early 2017 to reshape the national team.

attract nearly 17,000 athletes and officials, and more than 100,000 spectators.

– Agencies