DOHA, March 1 ) —  AFC Asian Cup  2023 the 18th edition of the continent’s premier tournament will be held from January 12th to February 10th, 2024 in Qatar, the Qatar Football Association (QFA) announced on Tuesday. Qatar is the defending champion.

The tournament was originally scheduled to be held in China from 16 June to 16 July 2023. On 14 May 2022, the AFC announced that China would not host the tournament due to the circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and China’s Zero-COVID policy.

The QFA also announced the establishment of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the AFC Asian Cup, and its president Ahmed Al-Thani was named as the chairman of the LOC.

In October 2022, Qatar was awarded by AFC to host the tournament, which has 24 participating teams.

The draw for the group stages will be announced by AFC based on the seeding of the teams according to the FIFA Ranking of December 2022. However, this seeding might change as the tournament comes closer. Two top teams of each group will qualify for the knock-out stages plus four best third-place teams from the six groups.

From the December 2022 FIFA World Rankings

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Qatar (60) (hosts)  Japan (20)  Iran (24) Korea Rep. (25)  Australia (27)  Saudi Arabia (49)	Iraq (68)  UAE (70)  Oman (75)  China (80)  Syria (90)  Vietnam (96)	Lebanon (100)  Uzbekistan (77)  Jordan (84)  Bahrain (85)  Palestine (93)  Kyrgyzstan (94)	India (106)  Tajikistan (108)  Thailand (111)  Malaysia (145)  Hong Kong (146)  Indonesia (151)

Venues

Five host cities were submitted in the 2023 bid, including seven stadiums prepared for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The Lusail Stadium was proposed to host the final and a semi-final, with the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor to host the other semi-final. However, the official stadiums for the tournament have not been announced yet.