OUR VIEW: Will the AFC Nations League make Asia better – or just bigger?

The AFC Nations League promises more meaningful football and a new competitive hierarchy across Asia. But will it help the continent improve – or create new barriers in the pursuit of progress?

The AFC Nations League has the potential to fundamentally reshape international football across Asia.

First announced by the AFC last year, the proposal now being discussed goes far beyond simply adding another competition to the calendar. It would divide Asia into three tiers, introduce promotion and relegation, reshape qualification for the Asian Cup and World Cup, and create a new continental title.

The logic is clear: fewer mismatches, more meaningful games and a more structured pathway for nations at every level.

But the detail raises just as many questions as it answers.

Does competitive balance help developing nations, or wall them off from the elite? Should any country be unable to qualify for a World Cup before a ball is kicked in that cycle? And for Japan, Korea Republic, Australia and the continent’s other leading teams, does more football against Asia really close the gap to the world’s best?

On the relaunched The Asian Game Podcast, Scott McIntyre, Michael Church, Martin Lowe and Paul Williams debated the merits – and risks – of the proposal.

The World Cup dream should never be closed off — Scott McIntyre

My fundamental problem with it is the closed nature of the system.

The World Cup should be open to anybody in the world to enter at any point of the cycle, regardless of where they sit. We’ve just seen Indonesia come from the first round of qualification and go all the way to the fourth round, within a match of making the World Cup. That kind of run has to remain possible.

You never know what can happen between cycles. A country might suddenly have three or four very good players come through, naturalise players, improve its coaching or simply catch a generation at the right time.

But under this model, if results go against you at the wrong moment, you can be stuck outside the World Cup pathway for the next cycle as well.

That is potentially an entire generation of players who never even get the opportunity.

I also think there’s a danger of Asia becoming too repetitive at the top. Do we really want Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Australia playing the same teams over and over again?

For Japan in particular, the ambition should be much higher. They need to be testing themselves against Brazil, Argentina and the leading European nations.

If you want to win a World Cup, playing the same Asian opposition repeatedly isn’t going to prepare you for what you face when you get there.

Competitive football is important, but international football should still have jeopardy, possibility and dreams.

The World Cup should never be a closed shop.

Asia still needs the global elite — Michael Church

The obvious problem the AFC is trying to solve is the Asian football calendar and the number of games that simply aren’t competitive enough.

There is merit in matching nations against opponents of a comparable level.

But you also remove the possibility of those rare results that can transform a smaller football nation – Guam drawing with Oman, beating Turkmenistan or India; those moments when a country gets the chance to test itself against someone supposedly above them.

The bigger concern for me, though, is at the top.

The only way Asian nations are going to bridge the gap is by playing more games against better levels of opposition.

Japan, Australia, Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia can play each other, and you can add Uzbekistan, Jordan or Iraq, but ultimately they’re not facing the styles or level of Spain, France, England, Argentina and the other best teams in the world.

We go to World Cups optimistic about Asian teams because we know what they can do within Asia, but too often we come away underwhelmed.

Part of the reason is that they’re effectively cut off from the global elite outside of that tournament every four years.

The current friendly system isn’t necessarily solving that either. Some of the games Japan plays against visiting South American teams can be commercially useful but offer very little competitively.

If the wider direction eventually leads towards something that allows Asia’s best to play meaningful competitive games against leading nations from other confederations, that could genuinely help.

But playing the best teams in Asia again and again?

That hasn’t closed the gap until now, so why would it suddenly do so in the future?

A meaningful pathway for the nations left behind — Martin Lowe

I’ve never thought that simply copying the European Nations League would work in Asia. We don’t need to fill every available window with more games against ourselves.

But this proposal is more interesting because it tries to rethink qualification and create more meaningful football across the entire confederation.

The obvious concern is Tier 3.

If a country such as Sri Lanka could win every game and still not qualify for the World Cup, that does feel wrong.

But we also have to consider what those nations get under the current system.

Many lose in the first round of qualifying and then effectively disappear from meaningful international football. They might have very few fixtures and very little opportunity to build.

Under this model, they would play more often, against teams at a similar level, and have a tangible pathway through promotion. It might take six years rather than four to reach a World Cup pathway, but there is at least a structure designed to help them progress.

I’m also interested in what it does to the middle tier.

Take China. Under the existing system, a traditional power can play poorly and still survive long enough to reach the decisive rounds.

In a Nations League structure, avoiding relegation suddenly matters.

At the same time, countries such as Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon or Vietnam have a clearer route to move up.

That jeopardy could be healthy.

There are flaws, but with several teams potentially moving between levels through automatic promotion and playoffs, there could be real fluidity.

For those middle-ranking nations in particular, maybe bringing in that sense of jeopardy can actually incentivise development.

Fix Tier 3 and there is something worth building — Paul Williams

I think the criticism around World Cup access is completely valid.

At the start of every World Cup cycle, every national team should have the aspiration and ability to qualify if they are good enough.

Under the proposal as it stands, a Tier 3 team could win every single game it plays and still never reach World Cup qualification.

That’s the part I would change.

Give the leading Tier 3 nations a route into a World Cup playoff. If you win your section or promotion playoff, there should be some mechanism that allows you to keep advancing.

That preserves the dream while still giving those countries something the present system often fails to provide: regular, structured international football.

For many smaller federations, arranging friendlies is difficult and expensive. Once they’re eliminated from qualification, they can effectively be cast aside for years.

How does that aid development?

There are positives higher up as well.

Australia went through the last second round of World Cup qualification with six wins from six, 22 goals scored and none conceded. Korea Republic scored 20 and conceded one.

Those are the types of competitive imbalances the AFC is trying to address.

A league structure could also create match-ups we rarely see because of the luck of qualifying draws. Australia might finally play Iran or Korea more regularly rather than meeting the same opponent home and away every cycle.

And the Nations League finals and promotion-relegation playoffs could become genuinely exciting events if they are handled properly.

Take them around the continent. If possible, reward the highest seed with hosting rights. Give Japan, Korea, Australia or whoever earns that right the chance to stage them and create major occasions in different parts of Asia.

The proposal isn’t perfect, but it is trying to solve real problems.

Fix the World Cup pathway for Tier 3, protect opportunities for Asia’s best to test themselves globally, and there may be the basis of something that makes Asian international football not just bigger – but better.