2018 AFC Futsal Championship

The 2018 AFC Futsal Championship was the 15th edition of the AFC Futsal Championship, the biennial international futsal championship organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for the men's national teams of Asia. The AFC appointed Taipei and New Taipei City, Taiwan (designated as Chinese Taipei by FIFA) as hosts on 29 July 2017; the tournament took place between 1 and 11 February 2018 at Xinzhuang Gymnasium and University of Taipei Gymnasium. A total of 16 teams played in the tournament.

Defending champions Iran defeated Japan in the final to win their 12th title.

Qualification
Qualifying was played on 15 October – 12 November 2017.

Qualified teams
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.

Venues
The competition was played in two venues in two cities.

Draw
The final draw was held on 12 December 2017, 11:00 TWT (UTC+8), at the Sherwood Taipei in Taipei. The 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their performance in the 2016 AFC Futsal Championship final tournament and qualification, with the hosts Chinese Taipei automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.

Squads
Each team must register a squad of 14 players, minimum two of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 29.4 and 29.5).

Match officials
The following referees were chosen for the 2018 AFC Futsal Championship.


 * Referees


 * 🇦🇺 Darius Turner
 * 🇧🇭 Hussain Ali Al-Bahhar
 * 🇨🇳 An Ran
 * 🇨🇳 Liu Jianqiao
 * Lee Po-fu
 * 🇮🇷 Mahmoudreza Nasirloo
 * 🇮🇶 Hasan Mousa Al-Gburi
 * 🇯🇵 Tomohiro Kozaki
 * 🇰🇷 Kim Jong-hee
 * 🇰🇬 Nurdin Bukuev
 * Mohamad Chami
 * Helday Idang
 * Rey Ritaga
 * 🇹🇭 Yuttakon Maiket
 * 🇹🇲 Azat Hajypolatov
 * Fahad Al-Hosani
 * 🇺🇿 Anatoliy Rubakov
 * Trương Quốc Dũng

Group stage
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter-finals.

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 11.5):
 * Tiebreakers
 * 1) Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 2) Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 3) Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
 * 4) If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
 * 5) Goal difference in all group matches;
 * 6) Goals scored in all group matches;
 * 7) Penalty shoot-out if only two teams are tied and they met in the last round of the group;
 * 8) Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
 * 9) Drawing of lots.

All times are local, TWT (UTC+8).

Knockout stage
In the knockout stage, extra time and penalty shoot-out are used to decide the winner if necessary, except for the third place match where penalty shoot-out (no extra time) is used to decide the winner if necessary (Regulations Article 15.1).

Awards
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:

Tournament team rankings
As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.