5 December 2024
The draw for the third and final round of the AFC Asian Cup 2027™ Qualifiers will be held at the Qualifiers Draw Ceremony on Monday, 9 December at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
There are six places left to be decided and the 24 teams will be divided equally into six groups to battle it out from March 2025, with only the winners qualifying for the 19th edition of Asia’s Jewel.
They will join the 18 teams who have already booked their tickets from the second round to the AFC Asian Cup Finals, which will be held in Saudi Arabia for the first time.
The teams competing in the final round of the AFC Asian Cup 2027™ Qualifiers will consist of the best three losers from the first round, the three winners from the play-offs and the 18 third and fourth-placed teams from the second round.
Nine of the competing teams will dream of a historic maiden AFC Asian Cup™ qualification – Afghanistan, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste – while eight others will be looking for an immediate return, having featured at the 2023 edition in Qatar.
The four pots and seedings for the draw, based on the latest FIFA rankings as of 28 November, are as follows:
Pot 1: Syria (95th), Thailand (97th), Tajikistan (104th), Lebanon (112th), Vietnam (116th), India (127th)
Pot 2: Malaysia (132nd), Turkmenistan (143rd), Philippines (149th), Afghanistan (155th), Hong Kong, China (156th), Yemen (158th)
Pot 3: Singapore (161st), Maldives (162nd), Chinese Taipei (165th), Myanmar (167th), Nepal (175th), Bhutan (182th)
Pot 4: Brunei Darussalam (184th), Bangladesh (185th), Laos (186th), Timor-Leste (196th), Pakistan (198th), Sri Lanka (200th)
The final round of qualifiers will be played over six days of home-and-away matches between March 25, 2025 and March 31, 2026.
