Bengaluru: 2022 FIFA World Cup hosts Qatar will host a pan-Arab football tournament in 2021 as test event for the quadrennial extravaganza to be staged a year later.
The 22-team invitational tournament to be held from December 1 to 18, 2021, will be contested by Arab nations from Africa and Asia and feature home-based players only, with the matches scehduled to take place at the same stadiums which host the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
The tournament will be conducted by the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy — the local organising wing of Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Qatar’s proposal to to conduct the pan-Arab tournament got the nod at FIFA Council meeting held on Thursday (June 25) which also took some other important decisions like awarding the rights to host 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup to Australia and New Zealand and to set up a massive relief plan to combat the severe damage caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
