Kuwait Under-17 team.

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 7: Kuwait has been placed in Group F of the 2026 AFC U-17 Championship qualifiers alongside host nation Thailand, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, and the Maldives. The qualifiers will take place in a single-stage round-robin format from November 22 to 30, 2025, with all matches hosted by Thailand.

The draw for the qualifiers was conducted at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This will be the 21st edition of the AFC U-17 Championship qualifiers, featuring 38 participating teams divided into seven groups—three groups with six teams and four groups with five teams each.

The top two teams from each group will qualify for the final tournament, where they will join nine teams that have already secured automatic qualification by earning spots in the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar. These teams are: Qatar, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Tajikistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.

The group allocations are as follows:

Group A: China (host), Bangladesh, Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam, Timor-Leste, Sri Lanka

Group B: Yemen, Laos, Kyrgyzstan (host), Cambodia, Guam, Pakistan

Group C: Vietnam (host), Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Northern Mariana Islands, Macau

Group D: India (host), Iran, Palestine, Taiwan, Lebanon

Group E: Jordan (host), Australia, Iraq, Philippines, Bhutan

Group F (Group 6): Thailand (host), Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Maldives, Blues

Group G: Myanmar (host), Oman, Afghanistan, Syria, Nepal

Teams were seeded into six levels based on a points system calculated from their performances in the previous three editions of the tournament.

The final tournament will be held in Saudi Arabia from May 7 to 24, 2026.

By Hassan Mosa

Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff