1st WAFF U23 Championship Coordination Meeting and Press Conference

The West Asian Football Federation (WAFF) has finalized the schedule for the first edition of its U23 Championship including the coordination meeting, pre-championship press conferences, and the semi-final and final round press conferences.

The 1st WAFF U23 Championship which will be taking place in Qatar is scheduled to kick off on September 30^th and until October 14^th, 2015 at the Lekhwiya Stadium in Doha with the participation of 10 WAFF member associations including Qatar the hosting nation, alongside Jordan, Palestine, and Yemen who were drawn in group A. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain are in group B. As well as UAE, Oman, and Syria in Group C.

The pre-championship coordination meeting will take place on Tuesday, September 29th at 11:00 am at the Radisson Blu Hotel – Jiwana Hall, to be followed by the pre-championship press conference taking place at the Mercury Hall in the Hotel’s first floor which will include three sessions; one session per group starting with Group A at 12:30 pm then Group B at 12:50 pm and concluding it with Group C at 1:10 pm, where all head coaches will talk about their preparations and ambitions for the championship.

WAFF also confirmed the schedule for the semi-finals and final round press conferences as follows:

Three group winners and the best runner-up from all groups will qualify for the knockout stage, group A winner will play against the best runner-up, and the Group B winner will play against the Group C winner. If the best runner-up is from Group A; then the winner from Group A will play against Group C winner, and Group B winner will play against the best runner-up in the semi-finals.

Due to the varying number of teams per group, teams in different groups would have played a different number of matches. Therefore, in order to ensure equality when comparing the runner-up teams of all the groups, all teams will be compared across a similar number of matches. WAFF will decide on the number of matches. In principle, the results of the matches between the runner-up team and the bottom-placed team in the group will be considered null and void. All points, goals scored and goals conceded in this match will not be taken into account.

The losing teams from the semis will play to determine the third-place winner, while the winners will play in the final to determine the champions and runner-ups.