Iran in Pot 2 of AFC U-23 Asian Cup Qualifiers
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced on Thursday that the official AFC U-23 Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2026 Qualifiers Draw will take place on Thursday, 29th May, at 3 pm local time in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the AFC House.
A total of 44 teams will be sorted into 11 groups to do battle for the Qualifiers, which will take place between 1st and 9th September 2025.
Fifteen berths are up for grabs at the seventh edition of the tournament, which will be hosted by Saudi Arabia for the first time and is set to be played in January 2026.
Champion in 2022, Saudi Arabia, has automatically qualified as host and will be joined by the 11 group winners from the Qualifiers, as well as the overall four best-ranked runners-up.
Each Qualifiers group will be contested in a centralized league format and with teams to be seeded into five pots based on a points system derived from their final rankings across the previous three editions of the Finals.
The pot allocations, with rankings indicated in brackets, are as follow:
Pot 1: Uzbekistan (1), Japan (2), Iraq (3), Korea Republic (5), Australia (7)
Pot 2: Kuwait (14), Iran (15), Turkmenistan (16), Malaysia (17), Bahrain (19), Palestine (20), Syria (21), Yemen (22)
Pot 3: Oman (25), Singapore (26), India (28), Lebanon (29), Laos (30), Timor-Leste (31), Chinese Taipei (32), Philippines (33), Hong Kong, China (34)
Pot 4: Afghanistan (35), Bangladesh (36), Mongolia (37), Guam (39), Pakistan (41), Macau (42), Nepal (43), Brunei Darussalam (44), Sri Lanka (45), Bhutan (46), Northern Mariana Islands (47)
Hosts Pot: Vietnam (6; Seed: 1), Qatar (8;1), Thailand (9;1), Jordan (10;1), Tajikistan (11;1), United Arab Emirates (12;1), Indonesia (13;2), China PR (18;2), Cambodia (23;2), Myanmar (24;3), Kyrgyzstan (27;3)
