China News Agency, Beijing, April 4 (Xinhua) — On the 4th Beijing time, FIFA issued a statement saying that it was suggested to postpone the global men’s and women’s football matches scheduled to be held in June. After careful discussion, the specific schedule should be concluded, at the same time, the age of men’s football team in Tokyo Olympic Games can be relaxed to 24 years old.
FIFA has said before that when the safety conditions of all parties meet the competition requirements, the participating association can still apply for the competition in June after approval. However, in view of the global spread of the epidemic, FIFA had to suggest delaying all the events originally scheduled for June. The FIFA task force during the epidemic said that it would determine the specific schedule after the situation stabilized.
The football events scheduled for June include the 2022 Qatar men’s World Cup qualifier, the Tokyo Olympic women’s football qualifier and a series of warm-up matches. This includes two World Cup Asian qualifiers of Chinese men’s football team, Philippine team and Syria team, and the Olympic women’s football Asian qualifiers of Chinese women’s football team and South Korea team. At present, the matches between the Chinese men’s football team and the women’s football team will be postponed.
Affected by the new coronavirus epidemic, the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020 was postponed to 2021. In response to the issue of the extension of the Tokyo Olympic Games, FIFA said that the qualification of the men’s football competition in the Tokyo Olympic Games will remain unchanged, and the upper age limit of the players will be adjusted from the original 23 to 24, that is to say, athletes born on or after January 1, 1997 are allowed to participate in the competition, and a maximum of 3 over-age players are allowed for each team.
According to the previous regulations, the players in the men’s football competition of Tokyo Olympic Games are composed of U23 players of the appropriate age in 202020. if the rules are not adjusted, the 23-year-old players who could have participated in the competition this year, it will not be eligible to stand in the Olympic arena next year. Therefore, FIFA adjusted the competition criteria to the U24 age group to ensure that players would not lose the competition qualification due to the delay of the Olympic Games.
Unfortunately, in the 2020 FIFA U23 Championship and the Tokyo Olympic Games men’s football Asian qualifier held in January this year, the Chinese U23 Olympic team lost all three games, ranking at the bottom of the group, thus, the Tokyo Olympic Games was missed. (Finished)