The AFC Challenge League (previously known as the AFC President's Cup, abbreviated as ACGL) is an annual third-tier

continent A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention (norm), convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single large landmass, a part of a very large landmass, as ...

al club

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

competition organised by the

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

. The competition is played among clubs from nations that did not receive direct qualifying slots to the top-tier

AFC Champions League Elite The AFC Champions League Elite (abbreviated as the ACL Elite) is an annual continental club association football, football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's List of top-division football clubs i ...

or the second-tier

AFC Champions League Two The AFC Champions League Two (abbreviated as the ACL Two or ACL2) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation. It is the second-tier competition of Asian club football, ranked below the AFC Ch ...

, based on the AFC club competitions ranking. The 2024–25 season marked its inaugural edition in the new format. The winner of the AFC Challenge League gets a direct spot in the group stage of the next season's

, if they have not already qualified through domestic performance.

History

The AFC President's Cup was founded in 2005 as a third tier competition so that clubs from lower-ranked AFC member nations could participate in continental competition. On 25 November 2013, the AFC Competitions Committee proposed the year of 2014 to be the last edition of the President's Cup. Starting from 2015, league champions of ''emerging countries'' were eligible to participate in the

AFC Cup The AFC Champions League Two (abbreviated as the ACL Two or ACL2) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation. It is the second-tier competition of Asian club football, ranked below the AFC C ...

qualifying play-offs. The last edition in

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

saw HTTU Aşgabat defeat North Korean side Rimyongsu 2–1, becoming the second consecutive team from Turkmenistan to win the competition. On 23 December 2022, it was announced that the AFC competition structure would change from the established formats from the 2024–25 season. A new third-tier tournament called the AFC Challenge League would be introduced. On 24 May 2024, AFC announced that the records and statistics from the defunct AFC President's Cup were recognised as predecessor competition and integrated with the data of the AFC Challenge League.

Format

Qualification to the competition initially was for clubs from AFC-affiliated countries which fall into the AFC's ''emerging nations'' category as laid out in their ''Vision Asia'' document. Between 8 and 12 clubs participated in each edition of the competition. From 2005 to 2007, 8 clubs were placed in the two groups of 4. The winners and runners up would advance to the semi-final stage. All the matches were held in a single host country. From 2008 to 2010, the tournament was increased to 11 clubs. A qualification round was created and clubs were split into three groups. Each group was played in a different country. The three group winners and the best ranked runner up qualified for the final stage. From 2011 to 2014, the tournament was increased to 12 clubs. In the qualification round, there were three groups of 4 clubs. The group winners and runners up qualified for the final stage. These 6 clubs were broken into two groups of 3. The top clubs of each group qualified for the final. In November 2013 the AFC announced that the

2014 AFC President's Cup The 2014 AFC President's Cup was the tenth edition of the AFC President's Cup, a football competition organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) for clubs from "emerging countries" in Asia, and the final edition under the AFC President's ...

would be the last edition of the tournament. Starting from 2015, league champions of "emerging countries" are eligible to participate in the

qualifying play-off. The

qualifying round Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

for the

2016 AFC Cup The 2016 AFC Cup was the 13th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club association football, football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya from Iraq defeated India's Bengaluru FC in the 2016 AFC ...

, with similar format to the AFC President's Cup (without final stage), was held in August 2015, which qualified two clubs to the AFC Cup play-offs. After the rebrand in 2024, the new format comprised 18 participating clubs divided into four groups for the inaugural season. The clubs compete in single-leg centralized format, with the top eight qualifying for the quarter-finals. The quarter and semi-finals are played over two legs, before the coveted final is staged over a single-leg contest.

Prize money

Starting with the 2024–25 season, the distribution of the prize money is as follows:

Records and statistics

List of finals

* The "Season" column refers to the season during which the competition was held, and links to the article about that season.

Performance by club

Performance by nation

Performance by coach

Awards

Top scorers

Best player

Top goalscorers

Notes

References

External links

AFC – Official website

AFC Challenge League
at Global Sports Archive

–

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

{{International club football AFC Challenge League Asian Football Confederation club competitions Recurring sporting events established in 2005 2005 establishments in Asia Multi-national professional sports leagues