The Asian Football Confederation will hold the draw for the AFC U17 Asian Cup Uzbekistan 2027 qualifying round at its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur this Thursday.
Thirty-five teams will be split into seven groups of five, each playing a single round-robin stage between 8 and 20 November 2026. The seven group winners will advance to the final tournament, where they will join nine sides that have already secured automatic qualification through their participation in the FIFA U17 World Cup Qatar 2026: Australia, China, Japan, Korea Republic, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
The UAE U17 team is among the competing nations and has been placed in the host seeding pot alongside Thailand, Oman, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, and Kyrgyzstan. Teams were ranked across five seeding tiers, plus the separate host category, based on their cumulative points across the three most recent editions of the tournament.
Thirteen teams are aiming to appear in the AFC U17 Asian Cup final round for the first time: Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Chinese Taipei, Guam, Lebanon, Maldives, Mongolia, Northern Mariana Islands, Palestine, Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Macau China.
