South Korea eye Asian Cup hosting rights

Published 01/05/2016, 9:50 AM EST

REUTERS – South Korea have launched a bid to stage the 2023 Asian Cup, six decades after they last hosted the event.

“Although the deadline to submit the letter of interest was March 31, we wanted to take care of it early to demonstrate our strong willingness to stage the competition,” the Korean Football Association said in a statement on Tuesday, Yonhap News reported.

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“We will hand in our formal bid sometime in the first half of next year.”

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South Korea, runners-up at the 2015 Asian Cup, previously hosted the quadrennial event in 1960, the last time they won the trophy.

The East Asian country has shown recent interest in staging large scale events and will host the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in 2017 and the Winter Olympics the following year.

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The AFC will decide who stages the event in November 2017. The United Arab Emirates are to stage the newly expanded 24-team Asian Cup in 2019 after Australia hosted and edged the Koreans after extra time in the final last year.

(Writing by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; Editing by John O’Brien)

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