15 Dec 2020
Saudi Arabia formally submits Bid Book for AFC Asian Cup 2027
14th December 2020 – Today, the Saudi Ambassador to Malaysia, H.E. Dr Mahmoud Hussein Saeed Qattan, formally submitted Saudi Arabia’s Bid Book for hosting the AFC Asian Cup 2027 to Jinho Yu, the Head of the Asian Cup Office at the AFC’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Saudi delegation tasked with submitting the Bid Book had met with AFC President H.E. Shaikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa and AFC General Secretary Dato’ Windsor John in Bahrain’s capital Manama yesterday (Sunday, December 13) to submit the Bid Book, with the delegates unable to travel to Kuala Lumpur due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“I am delighted to officially submit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Bid Book for hosting the AFC Asian Cup 2027,” said Ambassador Qattan. “We have high hopes for winning this bid, which will allow us to show our partners in Asia the great value that the Kingdom can bring to the table in hosting a sporting event of this magnitude. Our confidence stems from the boundless support our leadership lends to all sectors in the Kingdom – and to sports, in particular – in an effort to achieve the ambitious objectives of the Saudi Vision 2030.”
Meanwhile, Yasser Almisehal, President of the Saudi Arabian Football Association, thanked H.E. Ambassador Qattan for submitting Saudi Arabia’s Bid Book for the AFC Asian Cup 2027, noting that it marked a milestone in the efforts to fulfil the Kingdom’s aspirations to host the competition for the first time, in line with the leadership’s directives and support.
Almisehal said he looked forward to winning the bid, applauding the tremendous efforts that the team put in to develop a comprehensive and robust Bid Book.
The submission of the Bid Book to the AFC was the culmination of months of hard work to ensure the bid offers Asian football the best opportunity to move forward, on and off the pitch – a vision that is represented in the bid’s slogan, ‘Forward for Asia’.