{"id":10408,"date":"2021-05-16T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2021-05-16T15:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=10408"},"modified":"2021-05-16T15:32:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T15:32:34","slug":"north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers","title":{"rendered":"North Korea pull out of World Cup qualifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\">Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>North Korea have pulled out of next month&#8217;s qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Asian Football Confederation said Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Asian Football Confederation has today confirmed the withdrawal of the DPR Korea Football Association from the Asian Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,&#8221; the AFC said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>No reasons were given for the withdrawal but South Korean media reported earlier this month that Pyongyang had said it would skip the qualifiers over coronavirus fears.<\/p>\n<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has forced most of the second round of Asia&#8217;s preliminary tournament for the Qatar World Cup to be postponed until June.<\/p>\n<p>The AFC said last month it would change the format of the tournaments so that each group of five nations would play in one host country.<\/p>\n<p>South Korea was selected as the centralised venue host for Group H, which is led by Turkmenistan and also included the two Koreas, Lebanon and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>North Korea were fourth in Asian qualifying Group H, but only a point behind Group H leaders Turkmenistan with three games still to be played before their withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>The AFC said a decision would be made later on the standings in Group H after referring the matter to FIFA&#8217;s organising committee for competitions.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament doubles up as qualifiers for the 2023 Asian Cup, to be held in China.<\/p>\n<p>Pyongyang&#8217;s decision to pull out comes nearly a month after the country said it would not go to this year&#8217;s Tokyo Olympics, citing concerns over the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>North Korea was one of the first countries to close its borders more than a year ago to protect itself from the virus that first emerged in neighbouring China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Uganda. North Korea have pulled out of next month&#8217;s qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Asian Football Confederation said Sunday. &#8220;The Asian Football Confederation has today confirmed the withdrawal of the DPR Korea Football Association from the Asian Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,&#8221; the AFC said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":10407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,17],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-10408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Korea pull out of World Cup qualifiers - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"North Korea have pulled out of next month&#039;s qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Asian Football Confe ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea pull out of World Cup qualifiers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"North Korea have pulled out of next month&#039;s qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the Asian Football Confe ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-16T15:42:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/05\/img-60a13af311769.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"North Korea pull out of World Cup qualifiers\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-16T15:42:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\"},\"wordCount\":297,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/05\/img-60a13af311769.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/north-korea-pull-out-of-world-cup-qualifiers\",\"name\":\"North Korea pull out of World Cup qualifiers - 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