The Macau Football Association (

Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese fo ...

: Àomén zúqiú zǒng huì; pt, Associação de Futebol de Macau) is the governing body of

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

History

The Hong Kong–Macau Interport tournament, jointly organized by

Hong Kong Football Association The Hong Kong Football Association Limited (), often abbreviated to the HKFA, is the governing body of association football in Hong Kong. Its current chairman is Pui Kwan Kay and its Chief Executive Officer is Joaquin Tam. History The HKFA was ...

and Macau Football Association, has been played since 1937. Macau first entered AFC Asian Cup qualification in 1980, winning their first international match against

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

by 2-1 at

Tokyo National Stadium The Japan National Stadium, officially named and formerly known as or , is a multi-purpose stadium used mostly for association football in Kasumigaoka, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. The facility served as the main stadium for the opening and ...

. On 6 December 2018, Benfica de Macau President Duarte Alves accused the Macau Football Association of neglecting club football in favor of the

Macau national football team The Macau national football team (; pt, Selecção Macaense de Futebol) represents the Chinese special administrative region of Macau in international association football. The team is supervised by the Macau Football Association (; Portugu ...

. It is the second time in just two years that the club has been barred from participating in the

AFC Cup The AFC Cup is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Under its current rules, the competition is played primarily between clubs from nations that did not receive direct qualifying ...

on account of an administrative error. He said that the embarrassing situation might have been avoided if the Macau FA had been more proactive in supporting club football. Duartes further complained that he thinks that the Macau FA is simply focused on fulfilling whatever is required to get the FIFA and AFC subsidies – for example, having the various league echelons. On 27 June 2019, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee sanctioned the Macau Football Association for failing to play the second leg of their first-round match against Sri Lanka in the AFC’s 2022 FIFA World Cup preliminary competition, due to be played on 11 June 2019. FIFA declared a 3-0 forfeit victory for Sri Lanka, with the Macau Football Association also receiving a fine of CHF 10,000.

Association staff

Competitions

National division

First division

* Liga de Elite

Lower divisions

2ª Divisão de Macau Campeonato da 2ª Divisão do Futebol, is the second division of the Macau Football Association, created in 2005. As with the Hong Kong First Division League, it is separate from the mainland Chinese football league system, including the Chinese ...

* 3ª Divisão de Macau

National cup

* Taça de Macau

References

External links

Official website
at the FIFA website.

at AFC site Football in Macau

Sports organizations established in 1939 1939 establishments in Macau {{Macau-sport-stub