Asia’s upcoming qualifying matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup have been postponed to next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic which has wreaked havoc across the entire world.

The upcoming Asian qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 2022 and the AFC Asian Cup 2023 have been postponed to next year because of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in all over the world.

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“In light of the current COVID-19 situation in many countries, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (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,” AFC said in a statement on Wednesday.

“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,” it added.

The Asian governning body of football further said that the new dates next round of the qualifying matches for the World Cup and Asian Cup will be announced in the coming days.

More than 7 lakh people across the world have so far lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, which was scheduled to take place in India this year, has also been postponed to next year amid the wake of the deadly virus.

The All India Football Federation and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, which was due to be held in India from November 2 to 21 in 2020, announced that the tournament would now be played between February 17 and March 21 in 2021.

FIFA-Confederations working group, which was established by the Bureau of the FIFA Council to address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, had taken the decision to postpone the multi-nation event in early April, considering the deteriorating situation across the world caused by the novel coronavirus.