COVID-19: FFA welcomes FIFA's recommendation of retaining original qualification dates for Olympics

Football Federation of Australia (FFA) on Saturday welcomed the FIFA-Confederations working group's recommendation of retaining the original qualification dates for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

This recommendation came in the first meeting of the FIFA Confederation's COVID-19 working group, which was recently established to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.

FIFA said that the Olympics should remain open to players born on or after Jan 1, 1997, as originally planned. If this indeed takes place, it would effectively raise the age limit by one year.

"FFA has been vocal in its view that the Men's Olympic Football Tournament for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games should shift to an under 24 format since it was confirmed that Tokyo 2020 will be held in 2021 due to the effects of COVID-19," the FFA said in an official statement.

"While the recommendation still needs to be ratified by FIFA, the endorsement by the FIFA-Confederations working group highlights their understanding of the will of participating member associations to keep the Olympic dreams of players born on or after 01.01.1997 alive," it added.

On March 30, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that the Tokyo Olympics 2020 will be 'celebrated' from July 23 to August 8 next year while the Paralympics Games will be held from August 24 to September 5, 2021.

On March 24, for the first time in the history of the mega global event, the Olympics were postponed by a year. The decision was confirmed by the IOC after the organising body for the event and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to reschedule the Tokyo Olympics in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The IOC had, however, said that the original name of Tokyo 2020 will remain intact irrespective of the fact that it will take place next year.