World Cup: Socceroos qualifiers delayed until 2021, forcing potential clash with A-League
Remember the Socceroos’ World Cup qualifying campaign! It’s been 10 months since Graham Arnold’s men last played (a 1-0 win in Jordan). And a FIFA directive isn’t good news for a resumption any time soon.
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The Socceroos’ World Cup campaign has again been put on hold – and potentially put on a collision course with the A-League as 2021 becomes a scheduling nightmare.
FIFA on Wednesday announced that because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and in consultation with the Asian Confederation, all upcoming qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup have been postponed until next year.
Australia are two points clear atop Group B and have a game in hand on second-placed Kuwait, who they’d been scheduled to play on home soil in March this year before travelling to play in Nepal.
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Those fixtures had since been switched to October, but will now be played in 2021, as will Australia’s remaining group games against Chinese Taipei and Jordan, both of which had been marked down to be played in November.
“With the aim of protecting the health and safety of all participants, FIFA and the AFC will continue to work together to closely monitor the situation in the region and to identify new dates for the respective qualifying matches,” FIFA said in a statement.
“Further details on the new dates for the next round of qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and Asian Cup 2023 will be announced in due course.”
The first FIFA-sanctioned window of 2021 for international matches is in March, but there has been speculation that in light of the extraordinary circumstances FIFA could open up a further window in January for matches to be played.
That would prove problematic for Football Federation Australia, who have slated the start of the 2020-21 A-League season for December.
A January window could place current Socceroos Rhyan Grant (Sydney FC), new Macarthur FC signing Adam Federici and Western United defender Josh Risdon all in a club v country battle, were the domestic season to continue through the international period.
The international schedule for next year is already jam-packed, with the Olympics also being pushed back 12 months to July because of a COVID-19 delay while Australia had accepted an invite to play in next year’s Copa America, which starts in June.
A reshuffled schedule would also ensure the third round of World Cup qualifying – where all six group winners and runners-up are split into two groups of six to play home-and-away round-robin fixtures – to be moved even closer to the tournament itself.