The Asian Football Confederation (AFC), in consultation with FIFA, on Friday announced the proposed match dates for the remaining matches of Round 2 in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 Asian Qualifiers.
Match Days 7 and 8 are now scheduled to take place on October 8 and 13, 2020 respectively while Match Days 9 and 10 are due to kick off on November 12 and 17, 2020, said in a statement.
Accordingly, the Indian national football team's postponed qualifier against Asian champions Qatar at home was rescheduled to October 8.
India then take on Bangladesh away on November 12 and host Afghanistan on November 17.
India are already out of contention for a berth in the 2022 World Cup, but the Blue Tigers are still in the reckoning for a spot in the Asian Cup.
The latest decision has been taken with a view to complete the Preliminary Joint Qualification Round 2 by November 2020 and to commence the subsequent World Cup 2022 Asian Qualifiers Final Round as well.
The continental body is also targeting to complete the play-off matches for the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Round 3 Qualifiers by the March 2021 match.
The statement also said that AFC will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all teams, officials, fans and stakeholders.
Should there be a need to reassess the match schedules due to the ever-evolving impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the body will notify all parties.
