What is an official 'A' international under FIFA rules?

Currently there seems to be a lot of confusion in India about what an official 'A' international match involving two national teams is under FIFA rules or on what dates such a match can take place.



Now world football governing body FIFA has official FIFA match dates spread out across a calendar year with dates in February, March, May, June, August, September, October and November. Normally 12 to 13 matches fall under such a calendar, but these aren't the only match dates for international matches as official games and international friendlies can be held on any day of a calendar year.



The yearly calendar for international match dates has been created under pressure from Europe's top leagues and clubs, who didn't want to release players for more then those 12/13 matches a year. Actually they want that calendar to be cut to nine or 10 matches.



But if players are from Africa, Asia, Oceania or the Americas then these players do leave their clubs at inconvenient timings due to continental championships, qualifiers and sometimes even friendlies. This years examples are the AFC Asian Cup in January when most leagues are in full flow or the Copa America in July, which is forcing even stars like Lionel Messi to miss key time in the pre-season training with their clubs, while other players join their clubs without any pre-season training like Peru's Guerrero with Hamburger SV in Germany.



Under such logic then the Asian first and second round qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil would have been unofficial, then the June and July dates were not part of the FIFA match day calendar.



Take another example of Argentina. They will play by the end of the year 21 internationals matches and could have played 23 if they had reached the final of the Copa America. The Gauchos are playing numerous matches spread across the calendar for which teams in Europe are unlikely to release players, but they then put together a team of players from the Americas and Asia. The best example is the home-and-away series in September against archrivals Brazil with the matches being played on September 14 & 28.



Now if federations agree to play a friendly on any day of the year, then it is declared an official 'A' international if the rules are maintained which FIFA has set out for such a game. e.g. India's great win against Qatar was only a practice match as India went on to substitute 10 players with only a maximum of six substitutions allowed. But what we didn't know the Qataris had declared the match as a practice game in advance and not an 'A' international.



This is different now with the Caribbean Tour and the original plans of the India vs Pakistan series in England.



I hope this brings a little clarity in the discussions...