Sidibari
The South Asian Football Federation has announced that the 15th Edition of the SAFF Championship has been postponed to 2026.
In a press release published Thursday, the federation announced that “SAFF, our Member Associations and SportFive (media partner) felt that more arrangements needed to be in place to deliver the competition in a smooth manner”.
The Championship’s format had been discussed to be hosted in a home-and-away format for the first time. On March 11, member countries convened in Kathmandu, Nepal, and accepted the proposal from Sri Lanka for the hosting rights. Kick-off was set for 22 June in Colombo.
The statement elaborated that the decision was made “so that all our stakeholders and member associations have adequate time to organize the championship in a grand manner”, adding that “enough attention has to be given to find an appropriate timeline and venue for the SAFF Championship”. SAFF acknowledged the fact that 2026 is also a World Cup year – the Championship will collide with the World Cup should the timeline be set to the usual June-July period.
In 2023, despite starting strong by defeating Bhutan, the Maldives got eliminated from Group B of the 14th SAFF Championship, having been defeated by both Bangladesh and Lebanon
Almost two years have passed since then. The national team had played just six games in that period: four against Bangladesh – two of which were friendlies – one against India, and the AFC Challenge Cup Qualifying game against Philippines this March. Having won just one out of those six games. Maldives currently sits at 164th in the FIFA rankings.
