FIFA’s ASEAN Cup dates announced as Gianni Infantino makes regional ownership play
September 10 – FIFA has announced its own ‘owned and operated’ ASEAN national team tournament will be played September 15 to October 5 and hosted in Bandung and Jakarta, in Indonesia, and Hong Kong, China.
The controversial tournament has become yet another example of the unilateral decision making of under pressure FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who increasingly makes decisions and promises without consultation with his national federation members or confederations.
In the case of the FIFA ASEAN Cup, the tournament was first announced in October 2025 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the 47th ASEAN Summit of government ministers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and was witnessed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
FIFA had not informed either the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) or the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), which is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, of the planned tournament. The first that ASEAN nations and the AFC heard was via media stories.
That the announcement was accompanied by an MoU indicates that Infantino had been working on the project in secret for some time without the courtesy of involving the national FAs that would compete in this FIFA tournament, and without any discussion of their rights and remuneration for doing so.
Politically Infantino’s modus operandi has been to divide and conquer FIFA’s membership, veiled by his paper-thin insistence that he is creating unity. In reality, he is creating exactly the opposite alongside a culture of fear, both within his members and FIFA’s staff.
One AFC insider told Insideworldfootball.com: “Why is FIFA organising competitions in regions when its remit is only to organise World Cups and development. Why is it coming into confederation regions and running its own competitions. Was this something that was prepared so that the rights could be put into the FIFA Foward Enterpirse (FFE) package?”
The first of the FIFA ASEAN tournaments will take place in the same year as the AFF’s own and long-established biennial ASEAN Championship that was won by Vietnam earlier this year.
The FIFA Council eventually approved the FIFA ASEAN Cup at an online meeting in March and a memorandum of agreement between FIFA and the AFF was only reached in April.
FIFA’s tournament will have all 11 ASEAN federations plus three guest nations. The format will consist of two-tiered divisions.
Division 1: hosted by Indonesia, will include Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the two guests Bangladesh and Pakistan.
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