Qualification shall take place over two (2) rounds.
In Round One, the two teams ranked 23-24 (Lebanon and Maldives) will be playing home & away matches to determine who will qualify to join the other nineteen (19) teams (ranked 4-22) in Round Two of the qualifiers. Round Two is scheduled to take place from January 2009 to March 2010.
The draw for Round One to determine which team (Lebanon or Maldives) play home first will be conducted at AFC House on January 7, 2008.
In Round Two, one team from Round One shall join the sixteen (19) teams ranked 4-22. These twenty (20) teams shall be divided into five groups of four. The top two teams from each group will qualify for the tournament finals in 2011.
The ten (10) qualifiers from Round 2 shall join the top three (3) seeds who are the top three (3) finishers of AFC Asian Cup 2007™ – Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Korea Republic - who get automatic byes, in addition to hosts Qatar and the winners of the AFC Challenge Cup competitions in 2008 and 2010, bringing the total number of participating teams to sixteen (16).
The match schedule and detailed format shall be published early 2008.
AFC Challenge Cup 2008
AFC has announced the seedings and the revised qualification process for national teams for AFC Challenge Cup 2008.
The seedings for the qualification format of AFC Challenge Cup 2008 are based on the results from the AFC Challenge Cup 2006. The draw date for the qualifiers will be announced at a later date.
The seedings are:
1. DPR Korea; 2. Turkmenistan 3; India 4; Myanmmar; 5. Tajikistan; 6; Sri Lanka; 7. Nepal; 8. Kyrgyzstan 9. Palestine; 10. Chinese Taipei; 11. Bangladesh; 12. Brunei; 13. Pakistan; 14. Cambodia; 15. Philippines; 16. Afghanistan; 17. Bhutan; 18. Macau; 19. Guam; 20. Laos
Qualification shall take place in one (1) round with twenty (20) national teams competing.
Four national teams namely DPR Korea, Turkmenistan, Myanmar and potential host India (subject to inspection visit and approval by the Competitions Committee) will get automatic byes to the final competition.
The other sixteen (16) teams (ranked 5-20) shall be divided into four groups of four teams. The top team from each group will qualify for the tournament proper, bringing the total number of participating teams in the centralised finals to eight (8).
The winners of AFC Challenge Cup competitions 2008 and 2010 will qualify to the AFC Asian Cup 2011 finals in Doha, Qatar.