Bassam Adheel Jaleel, the President of the Football Association of Maldives has blamed the clubs for the lack of AFC Cup slots. Club licensing documents are a must for AFC Cup participants, which has not been submitted by most of the clubs. The documents sent by TC Sports, New Radiant and Maziya were not approved by the Asian Football Confederation. 

No slots were awarded for Maldives in the AFC Cup 2019. He has said that an online portal for submission of the relevant documents were given to all the clubs. FAM has been providing assistance to the Licensing Officers from the clubs. Last year AFC was more lenient, but this year they even rejected the request from FAM for more time.

AFC Cup slots were given to the Premier League Champions and the FA Cup Champions. Due to multiple change of fixture dates and fixture congestion, The FA has already cancelled the FA Cup and the prestigious President's Cup. For the first time ever in recent history, both these competitions are not being held.

photo: ImagesMV