Ashgabat will not host the 2020Asian Futsal Championship
The decision to suspend preparatory work for the 2020 Asian Futsal Championship in Ashgabat was made by the AC Organizing Committee at a special meeting.
The decision is based on security grounds in the context of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic and the desire to eliminate the associated risks of infection and spread of the disease in the country.
“Due to the complexity of the global and regional situation with COVID-19, the participants of the meeting came to the conclusion that it is necessary to refrain from holding the 2020 Asian Futsal Championship,” said Gulmurat Agamyradov, General Secretary of the Organizing Committee, in an interview with ORIENT.
What happened before? The 2020 Asian Futsal Championship in Ashgabat was planned to be held in February. During this period, the rise of the first wave of the pandemic caused the competition to be postponed. But the preparation continued in working mode.
The tournament under the auspices of the Asian Football Confederation has been postponed several times until the stabilization of epidemiological situation in the world. However, on July 24, 2020, the AFC sent a letter of recommendation to the Football Federation of Turkmenistan (FFT) to conduct the Asian Futsal Championship on November 4 to 15 this year.
The FFT appealed to the AFC with a proposal to postpone the championship to the first half of 2021, and if the situation with the coronavirus turns around by then, to hold it in Ashgabat. Moreover, a lot of preparation work has already been done.
On August 12, this year, AFC notified in a response letter that due to the organization’s commercial obligations to the Sportfive Sports Marketing Agency, the Asian Championship cannot be postponed to 2021.
In the connection with such presentation of a problem, the members of the Organizing Committee of the 2020 Asian Futsal Championship decided to stop further preparations for the championship.
What’s next? Despite the fact that the FFT has already completed most of the preparatory work for the 2020 Asian Championship, the AFC decided to organize the tournament on the territory of another Asian country. It will be seen whether it will take place and how many teams, fans and journalists will be able to join it.
Turkmenistan has made a decision, first of all, in favor of the country’s citizens and maintaining a stable epidemiological environment. But it will proceed with an application to the AFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Committee to host the next Asian Futsal Championship, in 2022.
Moreover, the AFC representatives have repeatedly come to Ashgabat in order to inspect sports and competition related facilities, and they left with very good impressions.
ORIENT news
