Fadhil Yunus
Brunei Darussalam have been drawn in Group A of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 Asian Cup Qatar 2024 Qualifiers following a draw ceremony at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia recently.
The Young Wasps will take part alongside Jordan, Syria and Oman with Jordan designated as the hosts of the group.
The qualifiers will commence from September 6 until 12 later this year.
The sixth edition of the tournament will see Qatar as the first country to host it twice.
Defending champions Saudi Arabia became the fifth different winner in as many editions when they lifted the trophy last year.
The qualifying tournament featured 43 teams who are members of the AFC and separated into 11 groups.
The seeding for the draw was based on the AFC Under-23 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2022 rankings while teams that did not join the competition had been added in the table as the lowest ranked teams.
As per the decision of the AFC Competitions Committee, all matches involving Qatar- host of the finals competition- shall be considered as friendly matches and not be taken into account when calculating the group rankings.
Therefore, Qatar will be considered as the unranked team during the draw.
The qualifiers for the men’s age group competition will be organised without applying the zoning principle as per the decision of the AFC Competitions Committee.
Eleven group winners and four best second-placed teams will qualify to the competition proper, which is scheduled to be held from April 15 to May 3 next year.
Qatar will be automatically qualified into the main draw of the competition as the group host.
Brunei last took part in the qualifying edition of the tournament in 2019 having previously withdrawn two years ago.
