AFC Champions League to resume in September

Bengaluru, July 9: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League, which was suspended from mid March due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, will resume in two regional hubs in September and October with a single match deciding the title in early December.

According to an AFC statmenet, the continent's elite club competition will resume first in West Asia on September 14 and in East Asia on October 16 at centralised venues as yet to be confirmed.

While group matches will be played in full in a round-robin format as originally planned, fixtures in the latter stages of the tournament from the round-of-16 onwards will be single knockout matches rather than the usual two-legged format.

"Notwithstanding the challenging times, I'm delighted that we're seeing more encouraging progress on the return of many domestic Leagues to the field and with them comes an expectation that we can conclude both the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup in the coming months," AFC General Secretary Windsor John said in a statement.

#ACL2020 🔙 🔜 https://t.co/LqvpYbltBo

— #ACL2020 (@TheAFCCL) July 9, 2020

The teams will play among themselves on East-West lines throughout the tournament until the final between the best team from each region in the western hub on December 5.

Four matches involving teams from the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Iraq will get the western zone back underway, while Australia's Perth Glory will play China's Shanghai Shenhua in the opening match in the East.

The AFC Cup, the competition for more minor football playing nations in the continent, will also resume in centralised venues in East and West Asia starting in late October with a one-off final scheduled for December 12.

The postponed Asian Under-19 championship will now take place in Uzbekistan from October 14-31, while the U-16 tournament has been rescheduled for November 25-December 12 in Bahrain.

The AFC Zone qualifiers for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 second round, which were postponed from March, June and September, have already been rescheduled for October and November 2020.

(With AFC Media inputs)