2016 Gulf Cup of Nations

2016 Gulf Cup of Nations
Tournament details
Host country Kuwait
Dates December 2016
Teams 8 (from 1 confederation)

The 2016 Gulf Cup of Nations or Arabian Gulf Cup (Arabic: كأس الخليج العربي) will be the 23rd edition of the biennial football competition.

Hosting

Kuwait will host the 2016 edition after Iraq withdrew from hosting.[1][2] It was originally scheduled to be held in Basra, Iraq, with an official decision set to be made in February 2015. On 2 February 2015, the Iraqi Ministry of Youth announced that Iraq would not host the competition due to a financial crises in Iraq, yet hope to host the next edition in 2018.[3][4]

It would have been the second time that Iraq had hosted this competition after 1979 which was held in the capital Baghdad. Iraq were set to organize the two previous editions in 2013 and 2014 but they shifted after concerns over preparations and security.[5]

Instead it was to be the fourth time that Kuwait have been hosts, after editions in 1974, 1990 and 2003.

On 3 July 2015, it was announced that the awarding of hosting rights to Kuwait was postponed after reviewing the technical reports and that a further announcement would be made later in the month. The dates of the competition were also slightly changed to take place from December 22, 2015 to January 4, 2016.[6]

Again, on 3 August 2015, the dates of the championship were pushed back to December 2016 or January 2017 due to infrastructure problems in Kuwait. Kuwait would continue to be the hosts. This again was changed in late August when Kuwait announced that they would host as initially agreed in December 2015, this was after most domestic leagues in the region had re-arranged their calendars due to the earlier postponement.[7][8]

On the 19th October 2015, Kuwait withdrew from hosting following Kuwait Football Association's suspension from FIFA.[2] Only for themselves to be once again re-instated as hosts on the 27th April 2016, but only if there suspension by FIFA was lifted by May 2016, failing this, the tournament would be hosted by Qatar in December 2017.[9]

References

External links

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