Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and First Deputy Chairman of FIFA, stressed AFC's keenness to put the higher interest of Asian football as a main pillar for choosing the host country of 2023 AFC Asian Cup. In a statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), he said that AFC's decision to receive bids from main national federations to host the 2023 championship is part of keenness to proceed with practical steps to organize the tournament, following the AFC General Assembly's decision to authorize the executive office of AFC with choosing the country to organize the championship. He said: "AFC Asian Cup over the past few years have achieved remarkable successes at various technical, organizational and marketing levels, so we are concerned with enhancing those gains in the coming tournament through providing solid grounds to organize a tournament that can be a source of pride for the Asian football via increasing the technical level, boosting the market value, increasing fans, and improving the organizational quality." Sheikh Salman renewed the AFC's commitment to following legal procedures concerned with choosing the organizing country for the 2023 tournament, noting that after the end of the period granted to national federations to offer their bids to host the championship, the relevant administration at the AFC will submit its vote to the executive office to choose the host country.