Asian Cup hosts to be officially announced in January

The bid to bring Asia's premier football competition, the AFC Asian Cup 2015™, to Australia continues with the host of the tournament set to be announced on 6 January 2011 by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

The decision will be made at a special AFC Executive Committee meeting, following the AFC Congress to be held in Doha, Qatar next year.

Australia is the sole bidder for the AFC Asian Cup 2015™ and is required to adhere to the formal bidding process as designed by AFC.

As part of the bidding process, Football Federation Australia (FFA) Chairman Frank Lowy and CEO Ben Buckley handed over Australia's bid book to AFC President Mohamed Bin Hammam on 29 July 2010 at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur. Australia's bid book contained 350 pages of information about how Asia's largest sporting event would be conducted in Australia.

FFA will deliver a Final Presentation and respond to subsequent questions from the AFC Executive Committee on 6 January 2011. The AFC Executive Committee will then deliberate and announce the host of AFC Asian Cup 2015™.

"Australia has a good track record of hosting successful major events and we believe the AFC Asian Cup 2015™ held in Australia would be beneficial to Australia and the entire Asian region," said FFA CEO Ben Buckley.

"Australia is a sports loving nation and without doubt this tournament would be welcomed by all Australians. Further to that more than 27% of Australia's overseas-born population is from Asia and 24% of Australia's longstanding migrants, who arrived before 2002, are Asian-born," he said.

Australia's bid to host the AFC Asian Cup 2015™ has the full support of the Federal Government as well as the support of the governments of Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victoria.