The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation (ALFC) was the section of AFC that managed women's association football in Asia. The group was independently founded in April 1968 in a meeting involving Taiwan, British Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. In 1986, ALFC merged with AFC.
The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Argentina as of October 2024. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the most successful teams being ranked highest. The rankings were introduced in December 1992, and eight teams have held the top position, of which Brazil have spent the longest time ranked first.
In European football, the UEFA coefficients are statistics based in weighted arithmetic means used for ranking and seeding teams in club and international competitions. Introduced in 1979 for men's football tournaments, and after applied in women's football and futsal, the coefficients are calculated by UEFA, who administer football within Europe, and the Asian parts of some transcontinental countries.
The FIFA World Cup qualification is a set of competitive matches that a national association football team plays in order to qualify for one of the available berths at the final tournament of the men's FIFA World Cup.
Qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation – the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, OFC (Oceania), and UEFA (Europe) – was allocated a certain number of the 32 places at the tournament. A total of 205 teams entered the qualification competition, with South Africa, as the host, qualifying for the World Cup automatically. The first qualification matches were played on 25 August 2007 and qualification concluded on 18 November 2009. Overall, 2,338 goals were scored over 852 matches, scoring on average 2.74 per match.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) section of 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification was allocated four assured qualifying berths for the final tournament in South Africa and one place in a play-off. 43 teams were in the running for these spots, while Laos, Brunei and the Philippines did not enter qualification. This was the first time Timor-Leste competed in World Cup qualification and the first time Australia attempted to qualify for the World Cup as a member of the AFC, having moved from the Oceania Football Confederation at the start of 2006. Note that this edition saw the first effective participation of Myanmar. The country, called "Burma" until 1989, was registered three times but withdrew each time before playing.
The CONCACAF Under-20 Championship is the second longest running international association football event in the North America, Central America and the Caribbean region, CONCACAF, and is the qualification tournament for the FIFA U-20 World Cup. The format of the tournament has undergone changes over the years. The tournament proper is currently played with a first round of four round-robin groups from which the top two sides from each group advance to a single-elimination championship round.
The CAF 5-year ranking system is used by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to determine the number of clubs that each member association may enter its club football competitions; the CAF Champions League and the CAF Confederation Cup. At present, those associations ranked in the top 12 may enter two teams into each of the two club competitions, while the remaining associations are limited to a single team in each competition.
Association football is the most popular sport in almost all North, Central American and Caribbean countries, and eleven members of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, CONCACAF, have competed at the sport's biggest event – the men's FIFA World Cup.
Association football is one of the popular sports in Oceania, and 2 members of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) have competed at the sport's biggest event – the men's FIFA World Cup.
The 2017 AFC Cup was the 14th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
The AFC Women's Futsal Asian Cup, previously the AFC Women's Futsal Championship, is the premier national women's futsal competition of the Asian Football Confederation nations. Iran have won both editions held to date.
The European qualifying competition for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was a women's football competition that determined the eight UEFA teams joining the automatically qualified hosts France in the final tournament.
The 2006–2018 FIFA men's ranking system was a calculation technique previously used by FIFA for ranking men's national teams in football. The ranking system was introduced by FIFA after the 2006 FIFA World Cup, as an update to an earlier system, and was replaced after the 2018 World Cup with a revised Elo-based system.
The 2022 AFC Champions League was the 41st edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 20th under the current AFC Champions League title.
Association football is among the most popular sports in Asia, with nine members of the Asian Football Confederation having competed at the sport's biggest international event, the FIFA Women's World Cup.
Association football is among the most popular sports in Africa, with eight members of the Confederation of African Football having competed at the sport's biggest international event, the FIFA Women's World Cup. The highest ranked result in the Women's World Cup for an African team is quarter-finals in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup by Nigeria.
Association football is among the most popular sports in Europe, with fourteen members of the Union of European Football Associations having competed at the sport's biggest international event, the FIFA Women's World Cup. The highest ranked result in the Women's World Cup for a European team is 1st place in the 1995, 2003, 2007 and 2023 FIFA Women's World Cups by Norway, Germany and Spain.
Association football is among the most popular sports in Oceania, with two members of the Oceania Football Confederation having competed at the sport's biggest international event, the FIFA Women's World Cup.
Association football is among the most popular sports in North America, Central America and Caribbean, with seven members of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football having competed at the sport's biggest international event, the FIFA Women's World Cup. The highest ranked result in the Women's World Cup for a North, Central American and Caribbean team is 1st place in the 1991, 2011, 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women's World Cups by United States.
