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The story
ESPN reports that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is considering creating a Nations League-style competition like the ones already running in Europe and North/Central America and the Caribbean. Under the plan, the tournament would be held every two years starting in 2030, splitting member nations into three tiers — Tier 1 and Tier 2 with 18 countries each, and Tier 3 with 11 — with talk of it also doubling as World Cup or Asian Cup qualifying. The thread split between people hopeful that qualifying would effectively be streamlined, and skeptics who see it as just more travel for Europe-based players with little to show for it.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) appears to be looking into creating an AFC Nations League. Sports outlet ESPN reported the news on the 4th.
The Nations League format is already in place in Europe (UEFA) and North/Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF), and Africa (CAF) is expected to launch its own version starting in 2029. The AFC itself first signaled its intent to introduce the competition back in December of last year.
According to this latest report, the AFC Nations League would be held every two years starting in 2030, with AFC member nations split into three tiers: 18 countries each in Tier 1 and Tier 2, and 11 countries in Tier 3.
Source: soccer-king.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
If Japan loses, their FIFA ranking takes a massive hit.
For everyone else, beating Japan is a huge chance to shoot up the FIFA rankings!
Japan's going to have to fight tooth and nail just to defend its ranking against the rest of Asia.
If every country doesn't keep a shot at qualifying, it's unfair — there's no need to run it as a league at all.
Just turn the Asian Cup itself into the Nations League.
I think Asian Cup qualifying is fine as it is. If they do go with a Nations League, just set a fixed number of teams for the top tier, a fixed number for the next tier, and so on.
Hard to say. Even today, that's roughly how many teams realistically have a shot at the World Cup anyway.
I think the bigger upside is for Asia's smaller nations, who'd no longer have to scramble to line up friendlies.
If Japan loses, their FIFA ranking tanks hard!
Japan's the one country that has to take this dead seriously!
It won't be standalone like in Europe — it's qualifying that's run in a Nations League format.
European countries aren't going to want to fly back and forth to Japan every year for various competitions — geographically that's basically a non-starter.
Strengthening the squad matters more than the ranking.
Europe-based players improve more by playing for their clubs — this would just end up being a training exercise for domestic-league players and clueless coaches.
If all you ever do is play Asian teams ranked outside the top 100…
that's exactly the kind of thing that won't make you any stronger.
I don't think Japan would actually end up in the same tier as teams at that level.
Which is exactly why there's no point in the Europe-based players taking part.
They'll probably split them into groups.
I don't think FIFA would have a problem with it — you've got to give the smaller nations a chance too.
At the youth level there are already cases where the Asian Cup doubles as World Cup qualifying. If there's a promotion/relegation system and every Asian country gets a path in, I doubt anyone would object.
The Swiss system — the one they use for the Champions League and such.
I don't really know much about the Champions League — what's that?
Money, that's why. The broadcast revenue now is on a completely different level than it used to be.
No idea if the AFC can actually pull in that kind of money, though.
Also, Africa's always fighting over money too.
There might be a decent payout to hope for. It gets overlooked a lot, but whether the national team can actually generate revenue matters a lot for the sport's development too. If there's any upside for Japan in joining, that's probably it.
World Cup qualifying alone is already more than enough. Honestly, I can't take any more of this.
The problem is the years when a World Cup spot isn't on the line, right?
In Asia, it's really only Japan, Korea, Australia, and Iran that regularly face top teams from other continents — most matches are Asia-on-Asia anyway.
Japan would be smart to just switch gears quickly and focus on securing a good position within it.
What matters is the money and the World Cup spot.
Public interest in the national team is going to drop even further than it already has.
Unless the Middle East puts up LIV Golf-level prize money, it just isn't worth it.
If Japan was ever going to slip up, it was always in that second round — get rid of that and Japan is almost guaranteed to reach the World Cup, while still getting tense, meaningful games against Asia's top teams. Not bad at all.
It just means every international match window becomes an all-Asia affair, that's all.
Even now, the international match windows during World Cup qualifying are already all-Asia.
Current system:
2nd round qualifying — 6 matches ← this part is a total waste
Final round qualifying — 10 matches
Total — 16 matches
Proposed system:
NL Tier 1 — 12 matches
If you advance all the way to the final, 16 matches total
The maximum number of matches is the same either way — it only drops if you lose.
Basically, World Cup qualifying just becomes more compact.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Since launching in 2018, the UEFA Nations League has become firmly established as a mechanism that generates substantial broadcast revenue and payouts for member federations; CONCACAF has already adopted the format, and CAF is aiming to launch its own version in 2029. The AFC had already signaled its intent to introduce such a competition back in December of last year, and this latest report represents the concrete proposal that followed. What split the thread was how to judge the idea of having it double as World Cup qualifying: one camp welcomed the prospect of fewer throwaway qualifiers and more tense matchups between top nations, while the other argued it would mainly saddle Europe-based players with extra travel for little real benefit. What tends to get overlooked is that in Europe and CONCACAF, the Nations League is, in principle, kept separate from World Cup qualifying — making it double as qualifying requires FIFA’s sign-off, and if the AFC’s plan goes through, it would be a format unlike anything used in any other region.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hassoku+) thread “[Soccer] AFC considering creating a Nations League… format that would double as World Cup or Asian Cup qualifying, possibly launching in 2030“.
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