Doha: The Supreme Organizing Committee of the 26th Arabian Gulf Cup Football Championship (Gulf 26) has set November 9 as the date for the draw of the tournament scheduled to be held in the State of Kuwait from December 21 to January 3. The Arabian Gulf Cup Football Federation said in a statement Monday that HE Minister of Sports and Youth Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al-Thani, who is also President of the Federation, will attend the draw ceremony that will be held in the Kuwaiti capital in the presence of Federation officials, delegations of the eight teams participating in the tournament, and a number of Gulf football stars. The statement noted that preparations are proceeding at a high pace in Kuwait in preparation for hosting the tournament draw ceremony, and coordination meetings are continuing between the Federation and the Supreme Organizing Committee of the tournament. It also added that the tournament committees are also scheduled to hold their meetings on the sidelines of the draw to approv e their heads and members and set their work programs for the next stage. The Arabian Gulf Cup Football Championship is held in two stages, the first is the group stage and the second is the knockout stage until the final match. The tournament draw is based on distributing the eight participating teams into two groups, with the host country (Kuwait) and the champion of the last edition (Iraq) at the top. The tournament system stipulates that the leader of each group and the second-place team qualify for the semi-finals, which will witness two matches: the first between the champion of the first group and the runner-up of the second group, and the champion of the second group plays against the runner-up of the first group, and the winners of the semi-finals meet in the final match. The teams of Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Bahrain and Yemen will participate in the Gulf Cup Championship. The Kuwaiti team is considered the record holder for the number of times it has won the championshi p with ten titles. Source: Qatar News Agency