SEOUL (Reuters) – The race to host the 2031 Asian Cup heated up on Friday when South Korea’s football association said it had submitted a “letter of intent” to host the continental championship to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Kuwait have already expressed interest in staging Asia’s equivalent of the Euros in 2031 and a joint bid from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan was announced on Tuesday.
“The Korea Football Association announced on the 28th that it had submitted an ‘Expression of Interest to Host’ to the Asian Football Confederation on the 27th for the 2031 AFC Asian Cup,” the KFA said in a statement.
South Korea last hosted the Asian Cup in 1960 when it was a four-team tournament also featuring Israel, South Vietnam and Taiwan as the Republic of China.
The country will be a serious contender for 2031 as a regional soccer power which has excellent football infrastructure mostly built for co-hosting the 2002 World Cup finals with Japan.
With UAE the favourites among the earliest bidders, the AFC were facing the prospect of four straight editions of the quadrennial tournament taking place in the Gulf of Arabia.
UAE hosted in 2019, Qatar in 2024 after China pulled out because of the COVID pandemic, and Saudi Arabia won the right to host the next edition in 2027.
The next stage of the race to host the 2031 tournament will be the submission of bid documents followed by AFC evaluation visits before the hosts are named in 2026.
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney in Sydney, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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