AFC have announced the dates and format of 2014 World Cup and 2012 Olympic Games qualifiers for Asia on August 13th in Kuala Lumpur.
For the 2014 World Cup which will be held in Brazil, the format remains the same as the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. All qualifying rounds are based on home-and-away format. In Round 3, there will be 5 groups with 4 teams in each groups, comprising of winners from Round 2. The winners and runner-ups from Round 3 will advance to the fourth round. For the fourth round the winners of Round 3 will be placed in two groups of 5 teams in each group. Top two from each group qualifies for the 2014 World Cup. The two teams in third place in both groups in Round 4 will play against each other. The winner from the home-and-away match will then face a play-off in Round 6 against a team from other continent to book a place in the World Cup Finals. Here are the dates for the qualifiers:
Round 1
Match Day 1: June 29, 2011
Match Day 2: July 3, 2011
Round 2
Match Day 1: July 23, 2011
Match Day 2: July 28, 2011
Round 3
Match Day 1: September 2, 2011
Match Day 2: September 6, 2011
Match Day 3: October 11, 2011
Match Day 4: November 11, 2011
Match Day 5: November 15, 2011
Match Day 6: February 29, 2012
Round 4
Match Day 1: June 3, 2012
Match Day 2: June 8, 2012
Match Day 3: June 12, 2012
Match Day 4: September 11, 2012
Match Day 5: October 16, 2012
Match Day 6: November 14, 2012
Match Day 7: March 26, 2013
Match Day 8: June 4, 2013
Match Day 9: June 11, 2013
Match Day 10: June 18, 2013
Round 5
Match Day 1: September 6, 2013
Match Day 2: September 10, 2013
Round 6
Match Day 1: October 15, 2013
Match Day 2: November 19, 2013
football-asia.net/?p=520