Kuala Lumpur, Aug 12 (IANS): Asia's upcoming qualifying matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup have been postponed to next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic which has wreaked havoc across the entire world.

"In light of the current COVID-19 situation in many countries, FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) have jointly decided that the upcoming qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023, originally scheduled to take place during the international match windows in October and November 2020, will be rescheduled to 2021," AFC said in a statement on Wednesday.

"With the aim of protecting the health and safety of all participants, FIFA and the AFC will continue to work together to closely monitor the situation in the region and to identify new dates for the respective qualifying matches," it added.

AFC further said that details on the new dates for the next round of qualifying matches for the two tournaments will be announced in due course.

More than 7 lakh people across the world have so far lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic.