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Club ranking was introduced in 2014 by the AFC. [1] It was an informative ranking and not used to seed clubs in the club competitions. [2]In 2024, the AFC announced changes in the format for ranking the three revamped Club competitions – AFC Champions League Elite, AFC Champions League Two, AFC Challenge League – effective from the 2024–25 season. [4]
The following table is a list of clubs that have participated in the Asian Club Championship and AFC Champions League. Excluding semifinalists from 1987 to 1989–90 seasons. In these seasons, there were no semi-finals as the finalists qualified via a group stage.
The competition is an amalgamation of the Asian Club Championship, the Asian Cup Winners' Cup and the Asian Super Cup and gathers the top teams from the highest-ranked nations in Asia (the number of teams depend on that country's ranking and can be upgraded or downgraded).
The 2002–03 season saw the Asian Club Championship, Asian Cup Winners' Cup and Asian Super Cup combine to become the AFC Champions League. League champions and cup winners would qualify for the qualifying playoffs with the best eight clubs from East Asia and the eight best clubs from West Asia progressing to the group stage.
The clubs playing in top-level league compete for the title as the country' champions, and also for places in next season's AFC club competitions: the AFC Champions League Elite, the AFC Champions League Two and the AFC Challenge League. Due to promotion and relegation, the clubs playing in the top-level league are usually different every season.
It is the second-tier competition of Asian club football, ranked below the AFC Champions League Elite and above the AFC Challenge League. The tournament was founded in 2004 as the AFC Cup, which was played primarily among clubs from nations that did not receive direct qualifying slots to the top-tier AFC Champions League.
Iran remains as the only national team in Asia to have won three consecutive Asian Cups. The 1972 final was notable as it was the first Asian Cup to use the group stage-knockout phase format, which was followed in the subsequent tournaments with some alternation. [6] Israel was expelled from the AFC in 1972 due to the Arab–Israeli conflict. [7]
The 2024–25 AFC Champions League Elite (ACL Elite) is the 43rd edition of Asia's premier club football tournament, organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the first since it was rebranded as the AFC Champions League Elite. The revamped format, along with the rebranding, sees 24 teams playing eight games against different ...