Stage set for AFC Beach Soccer Championship 2017 draw

AFC – KUALA LUMPUR, Fourteen nations will learn their AFC Beach Soccer Championship Malaysia 2017 opponents on Monday at the tournament’s official draw in Kuala Lumpur.

What: Offical draw for the AFC Beach Soccer Championship Malaysia 2017
When: 3pm local time
Where: AFC House in Kuala Lumpur

The competition, which also serves as the qualifiers for the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017, will see the participating nations divided into two groups of five teams and one group of four teams.

The group winners and the best second-placed team from the three groups will qualify for the semi-finals, the winners of which will advance to the final.

For the draw, the teams will be ranked according to the results of the 2015 edition which was won by Oman.

The teams (with their rankings in brackets) will be drawn as follows:

Pot 1: Oman (1st), Japan (2nd), Islamic Republic of Iran (3rd)
Pot 2: Lebanon (4th), United Arab Emirates (5th), Bahrain (6th)
Pot 3: Uzbekistan (7th), China PR (8th), Iraq (9th)
Pot 4: Thailand (10th), Qatar (11th)
Pot 5: Afghanistan (unranked), Malaysia (unranked), Myanmar (unranked)

The top three teams will fly the Asian flag at the 2017 global extravaganza in the Bahamas which is scheduled to begin on April 27.