25th Arabian Gulf Cup draw in Basra on Tuesday

Muscat: The 25th edition of Arabian Gulf Cup football championship draw will be held at Basra in Iraq on Tuesday.

The championship is scheduled to be held in Iraq in the beginning of 2023.

The draw will be held in the presence of top football chiefs in the Gulf countries and coaches of the participating teams.

Sultanate of Oman part will be represented by Qutaiba bin Said al Ghailani, member of the Board of Directors of the Oman Football Association, Younis bin Issa al Ghafri from the Media Department, Maqbool bin Mohammad al Balushi, Director of the National Team and Salah bin Thuwaini al Araimi from the National Teams Department. All federations announced their participation and attendance at the draw ceremony.

The teams will be divided into two groups, with the first group headed by the hosting Iraqi team, the second group with the Bahraini team, and the other six teams were classified according to the latest Fifa classification, where Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the second classification, the Sultanate of Oman and the UAE in the third classification, Kuwait and Yemen in the fourth classification.

After more than 10 years, Iraq is hosting the tournament for the second time in history after the first in 1979, when it hosted the fifth edition in the capital, Baghdad, at Al Shaab International Stadium and won the tournament title.

The Arabian Gulf Cup is organised every two years. The first edition was held in Bahrain in 1970 and the recent one in Qatar 2019. Kuwait holds the record for the number of wins with 10 titles, compared to 3 titles for Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and two titles for the Sultanate of Oman and the UAE, and one title for Bahrain.

Oman national football team is supervised by the Oman Football Association, which was established in 1978 and joined the International Football Association in 1979.

Oman team won two championships for the Gulf Cup, the first title was in 19th edition hosted by Oman in January 2009 in Muscat, when they met Saudi Arabia in the final match. The second title was at 23rd edition hosted by Kuwait in 2017, when they won against the UAE in the final.