SINGAPORE, 10 SEPTEMBER 2020 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced earlier today that the AFC Cup 2020 tournament has been cancelled after being impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

 

This means that Singapore’s representatives this season, Singapore Premier League (SPL) sides Tampines Rovers and Hougang United, will have their sojourns cut short.

 

In an update posted on its website on Thursday evening, the AFC Executive Committee noted that the pandemic has “affected the ability of the AFC to deliver its competitions”, including the current edition of the AFC Cup.

 

It stated: “In view of the logistics in coordinating the five zones of the AFC Cup and completing the Inter Zone matches, the AFC Executive Committee also agreed that the pandemic created complexities which constituted a Force Majeure event and, with sadness, led to the cancellation of the 2020 competition.”

 

Tampines, who were taking part in the tournament for the 12th time, were top of Group H after three matches and on course to qualify for the Zonal semi-finals. Their counterparts, Hougang, were participating in continental competition for the first time in club history and sat third in Group F after three games.

 

The group stages for this year’s tournament had started in February and all matches were postponed on 18 March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The AFC remained hopeful of resuming the tournament and had announced the rescheduling of matches for six out of nine groups i.e Groups A, B, C, E, F and G in late July and early August before today’s decision to write off the tournament.

 

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