PH Booters’ season comes to abrupt halt

The Philippine Azkals won’t be seeing action until next year as world governing body Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) decided to postpone the joint Fifa World Cup and AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers to next year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Azkals were scheduled to play their remaining matches in Group A against Guam in October and against Maldives and China in November.

“In light of the current COVID-19 situation in many countries, Fifa and the [AFC] have jointly decided that the upcoming qualifying matches for the Fifa World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023, originally scheduled to take place during the international match windows in October and November 2020, will be rescheduled to 2021,” Fifa said in a statement.

“With the aim of protecting the health and safety of all participants, Fifa and the AFC will continue to work together to closely monitor the situation in the region and to identify new dates for the respective qualifying matches. Further details on the new dates for the next round of qualifying matches for the Fifa World Cup 2022 and Asian Cup 2023 will be announced in due course.”

With the postponement, the Azkals will have no more games to play for the remainder of the year after the AFF Suzuki Cup was also moved to 2021.