Asian Club Competitions 2026/27
Overview of the AFC men’s continental club football pyramid
A bit of fun here, as I am summarising the Asian competitions, but started by seeing what “Copilot” AI made of it
The 2026/27 Asian club season marks the third campaign under the Asian Football Confederation’s revamped men’s club competition structure. The pyramid is led by the AFC Champions League Elite, supported by the second-tier AFC Champions League Two and the third-tier AFC Challenge League. Together, the competitions are designed to broaden continental participation while creating a clearer pathway from developing leagues to Asia’s top club stage.
Competition Structure
| Competition | Tier | Role in the Pyramid |
| AFC Champions League Elite | 1 | Asia’s premier men’s club competition, bringing together the strongest clubs from leading member associations. |
| AFC Champions League Two | 2 | A broader continental competition for clubs below the elite tier, with promotion-style access to the following season’s top competition for the winner where applicable. |
| AFC Challenge League | 3 | A developmental continental platform for clubs from emerging and lower-ranked associations, feeding into AFC Champions League Two. |
Key Features of the 2026/27 Season
- The AFC Champions League Elite is expected to operate with an expanded 32-club league stage, split between East and West regions.
- The wider men’s club ecosystem is expected to involve 93 clubs across the three competitions.
- Regional separation remains central to logistics and competitive balance, particularly in the early and league-stage phases.
- The competition pathway links tiers: success in the Challenge League can lead to Champions League Two access, while Champions League Two success can support progression toward the Elite level.
AFC Champions League Elite
The AFC Champions League Elite is the flagship competition. For 2026/27, it brings together the leading clubs from Asia’s highest-ranked club markets and is framed around a larger league stage than the first two seasons of the revamped format. The competition is intended to create more high-profile fixtures, greater commercial value, and a stronger benchmark for Asia’s elite clubs.
AFC Champions League Two
AFC Champions League Two acts as the second tier of Asian men’s club football. It gives clubs from a wider group of member associations regular continental competition while maintaining a meaningful connection to the top tier. The 2026/27 edition is expected to feature a 32-team competition proper, with regional pathways feeding into the later stages.
AFC Challenge League
The AFC Challenge League is the third tier and is particularly important for clubs from developing football associations. It provides international match experience, raises standards across smaller leagues, and offers a route into higher-level AFC competition for successful clubs.
What to Watch
- How the expanded Elite league stage affects fixture quality, travel demands, and squad rotation.
- Whether clubs from emerging associations can use the Challenge League and Champions League Two as credible stepping stones.
- The balance of power between West Asian and East Asian leagues, especially Saudi Arabian, Japanese, Korean, Emirati, Qatari, Iranian, Thai, Chinese, and Australian clubs.
- The commercial and broadcast impact of a larger top-tier competition.
Conclusion
The 2026/27 Asian club competitions represent a more layered and ambitious AFC club ecosystem. With an expanded Elite level, a competitive second tier, and a developmental third tier, the structure aims to improve standards across the continent while giving more clubs a realistic continental pathway.
My own thoughts – and a more detailed explanation
Asian Club competitions have for some time have appeared to be a mix of two conflicting streams. Trying to copy whatever UEFA does and then adjusting for the reality of Asia. The tendency has been towards a confusing mess of competitions.
Champions League Elite
The primary competition, the Champions League Elite takes from Europe the idea of a large league stage, where teams play a selection of potential opponents and has a very limited qualifying programme where the losers drop into the next level down. Unlike UEFA’s version, it is not open to even the champions of all leagues. Only the top fourteen get a look in, and two of these have to play in the qualifiers. The other differences are that the league stage (and for that matter, qualifiers) is in two groups, East and West and there is no intermediate round where some qualifiers play a knock-out round while the best are exempt.
The other big difference is of course that from the quarter-finals onwards, all matches are played in Saudi Arabia. This has led to controversy and two successive wins for Al-Ahli.
This season, the numbers in the competition have increased from 24 to 32 with 16 in each of the East and West groups. Only seven countries can be represented in each half, with the top country getting four places in the group stage, the second and third getting three places, the fourth ranked country two while fifth and sixth ranks get one each. That adds up to 14, and means there are just two places on each side added by qualifying games, going to the top two ranks, plus the fifth and seventh.
As the rankings are done separately for East and West, while the AFC also has an overall ranking, it can be seen that Iran gets the short straw – sixth in the overall rankings, but fourth in the West, and hence gets one less slot than Thailand, (seventh overall).
For the record, the top seven countries in the West (in order) are Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iran, Uzbekistan, Iraq and Jordan, while in the East, they are Japan, South Korea, Thailand, China, Australia, Malaysia and Vietnam
The qualifying games sent the club from the top ranked nation in each half of the draw to the second ranked nation, with Al-Ittihad (Saudi Arabia) winning away at Al Jazira (UAE) and Gamba Osaka (Japan) winning away at Gangwon (South Korea). Gamba came through to this point as winners of the secondary competition last season. Meanwhile Pakhtakor became Uzbekistan’s second club in the league stage by beating Al-Hussein of Jordan, while Cong An Ha Noi (Vietnam) won away at Adelaide United (Australia). The qualifying losers all play in the the Champions League 2, while the Vietnamese win means 13 different countries play in the league stage.
Each club now plays Eight matches at the league stage, balanced so that despite Saudi Arabia in the West, and Japan in the East have five entries each, there are no matches between two teams from the same country.
The top eight from each group go through to a first knock out round (still East and West) and over two legs, with the winners heading to Saudi Arabia for matches from the quarter-finals onwards. As a general rule, matches in the West are split between Monday and Tuesday, while in the East it is Tuesday and Wednesday
Champions League 2
The name of the secondary competition was chosen by a committee sitting down and asking what is the worst name we can think of?
Like the Elite section, Champions League 2 is split into East and West with 16 teams in each, but here the 16 play in groups of four, with the traditional six game home and away round robin groupings.
The top seven countries as named above each get one team automatically placed in the group stage, while as losers in the Elite qualifying section, UAE, South Korea, Jordan and Australia have a second team at this stage.
Below that it becomes asymmetrical at least partly because the Champions of the AFC Challenge League, Al-Kuwait are included directly into the group stage. Hence in the West, the eight and ninth ranked countries (Bahrain and Oman) have two entries, direct to the group stage, India also have two – but both play a qualifying game, while Turkmenistan and Kuwait as 11th and 12th both get a team into qualifying (in addition to Al-Kuwait’s direct slot). The winners or the qualifying games (both home teams) were East Bengal (India) which beat Al-Arabi (Kuwait) and Arkadag (Turkmenistan) which beat Goa (India)
In the East, three countries added two direct places to the group stage, these were teams from Singapore, Hong Kong and Cambodia, while there was just one qualifying game, with Persib (Indonesia) going through at the expense of the Philippines side, Manilla Digger.
In the Champions League 2, it appears the West is playing on Tuesday and Wednesday, with Eastern games on Tuesday and Wednesday.
This means 12 countries can participate in each half of the competition, although the Philippines missed out. But while the 7 East and 7 West did make up the top 14 on AFC rankings for the Elite competition, 12 on each side goes down to 27 overall! Kuwait is the 12th ranked in the West, but 21st overall. Lebanon, 22nd overall do not even get a chance at qualifying, while Cambodia 23rd overall get two teams in the group stage.
From each of the eight groups, two teams go into the knockout rounds, which are played as two-legged ties and stick as East and West to the semi-finals. For the last two seasons, the final has been played in the country of one of the finalists. Saudi Arabia (West) last season and Singapore (East) in 2025. The away team won on both occasions. This appears a sensible conclusion, so I am hoping an East Asian country hosts the final on 17 May.
Challenge League
The third ranked competition and a third modus operandi. There are 47 members of the AFC, and only 24 of them get a chance in the top two competitions. Twenty countries are not allowed to enter teams directly into the Challenge league, these being those in the top ten ranks East and West. Only one team from these leagues ends up in the Challenge League group stage – this being FC Goa,
When split West and East, and ignoring those top 10 on each side of the line, there are 15 more member associations on the West, but only 12 in the East. An added complication is that 9 of these have no club entered. The notes say that these countries do not have a licensed team, but do not go as far as to say whether a team applied for a license and failed, or if no team applied. The missing countries are Palestine, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Pakistan (West), plus North Korea, Macau, Guam and the North Mariana Islands (East).
The AFC has chosen to be very asymmetrical, based on these number and has two groups in the East, but three in the West.
Direct places at the group stage go to the teams eliminated from Champions League 2, plus, in the East one each from Indonesia, Philippines and Myanmar. In the West, Turkmenistan and Kuwait get one place, Lebanon gets two (correcting a bit for its misfortune in not being in the CL2), while one goes to Tajikistan.
That means 4 more teams are needed in the East, so there are 8 qualifying slots, given to Myanmar, Chinese Taipei (2), Mongolia (2), Laos, Brunei and Timor Leste. One of these games is scheduled next Tuesday, when Karketu Dili (Timor Leste) travels to Brunei to play Kasuka. In the other games, both Mongolian teams lost at home to those from Chinese Taipei (Central Stallions 2-2 Taipei City (3-5 pens) and FC Ulaanbaatar 1-2 New Taipei Hang Yuan), while Erza (Laos) lost 2-1 to Yangon United (Myanmar) in a match where the Laotians could have had home advantage, but for some reason switched venues.
With 7 directly qualified teams in the West, 5 more are required to make up three groups, so there are ten slots at qualification, these go to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (2), Bangladesh (2), Syria (2), Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan.
All games have been played, with a nice triangle of fixtures between the countries with two teams. In Kyrgyzstan, Dordoi Bishek lost on penalties to Homs Al Fidda (Syria); in Bangladesh, Fortis beat Muras United (Kyrgyzstan) 1-0 and in Jordan, Al Ittihad Ahli (of Jordan) beat Bangladesh Police 1-0. Al Ittihad’s goalscorer was a Brazilian named Jordan. The Bhutanese Champions Paro won at home against the Afghan club Abu Muslim, while a day after the other matches, Maziya (Maldives) lost 3-0 at home to Regar TadAZ (Tajikistan).
The groups will be played as single round robins at a single venue, all in the middle of next month. One team is therefore the host in each group.
Paro (Bhutan) host group A, to be played at Changlimithang Stadium in Thimpu, Istiklol (Tajikistan) are hosts of Group B, played in Hisor and Al Qadsia will use their Mohammed Al-Hamad Stadium in Hawally, Kuwait to stage Group C. All these games, in the West use October 17/20/23 as the dates
The Eastern groups are being played in September with games on 18/21/24 of the month. Group D will be at Segiri Stadium, Borneo, Indonesia, with Borneo as the host, while Shan United are the host for matches played at Thuwanna Stadium in Yangon (Myanmar).