Why did Thailand lose many stars at the AFF Cup 2018?
Busy playing abroad, many of the best players of the Thai national team may not participate in the AFF Cup 2018. The Thai Football Federation knows this could cause them to lose the championship to their opponents, but they are helpless.
The reason is that the AFF Cup 2018 (from November 8 to December 15) coincides with the time when professional leagues in Japan and Belgium take place, so Thai players playing in the two countries will not be allowed to return to play for the national team if their clubs do not allow it.
It should be noted that the Southeast Asian Football Federation (AFF) is not a member federation of FIFA (FIFA only recognizes membership of national and continental federations, not membership of regional federations), so the AFF Cup is not part of FIFA's competition system.
Forced to say goodbye to many talented players at the AFF Cup 2018, Thailand is at risk of losing the Southeast Asian championship this year.
Because the AFF Cup is not part of the FIFA competition system, the host clubs are not obliged to return players to play for their national teams within the framework of the AFF Cup.
This is not an unfamiliar situation in some countries in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, which experienced the same phenomenon in the 2010 AFF Cup and 2012 AFF Cup, and the Vietnamese national team also had players playing abroad during the 2016 AFF Cup.
However, because the Filipino players in 2010 and 2012 all played for amateur teams in England, their return to the Philippine national team did not cause much controversy, because their clubs did not place much importance on the presence of such players in several matches taking place at the same time.
A similar situation also happened to Cong Phuong (then playing for Mito Hollyhock of Japan) and Xuan Truong (then playing for Incheon United - Korea) at the AFF Cup 2016.
The two players of the Vietnamese national team are not important players, and do not have a starting position in the two clubs in Japan and Korea, so those clubs did not make things difficult for these two players when Cong Phuong and Xuan Truong returned to participate in the AFF Cup 2016.
Currently, all four Thai players, Chanathip Songkrasin (Sapporo Club - Japan), Teerasil Dangda (Hiroshima - Japan), Theerathon Bunmathan (Visel Kobe - Japan) and goalkeeper Kawin (Heverlee Leuven - Belgium) are all important players of the clubs they are playing for, so the possibility that these teams will not release their players to the Thai team at the AFF Cup is very high.
The Football Association of Thailand (FAT) and coach Rajevac of the Thai national football team know that losing key players could weaken the Thai team, creating opportunities for opponents to defeat them in the AFF Cup. But that is FIFA's rule, clubs are not obliged to release players to national teams beyond the time limit set by FIFA, so Thai football will have to accept it if the Japanese and Belgian teams make things difficult!
