Japan Football Association president Tsuneyasu Miyamoto has said it will be hard for Saudi Arabia to stage the 2027 AFC Asian Cup as planned, the most senior voice from a major member nation so far to question the 7 January start.
Speaking at the AFC's extraordinary congress in Tokyo, Miyamoto said he had met the Saudi delegation, who told him player and fan safety came first and that a decision on whether the tournament goes ahead would be taken with the AFC and would take time. "At this point, I don't think it would be easy to hold the Cup there," he said.
The comments sit awkwardly with the local organising committee, which said last week that venues, facilities and operations were all on the approved schedule. AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa had already said a move to 2028 remained possible, with a decision due by the end of November.
The doubt follows a run of cancelled and postponed events in the kingdom since a deadly attack on Riyadh's international airport this month: golf's Saudi International was postponed indefinitely, the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships were cancelled, the Six Kings Slam tennis exhibition moved to December, and FIFA put back its FIFAe Finals in Jeddah. The Asian Cup, scheduled to run until 5 February, was meant to be an early rehearsal for Saudi Arabia's 2034 World Cup.
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Original summary by Proventier.