The 2017 Arab Club Championship was the 27th season of the
Arab World's inter-club football tournament organised by
UAFA, and the first season since it was renamed from the UAFA Club Cup to the Arab Club Championship. The competition was won by
Tunisian club
Espérance de Tunis :''See also Esperance (disambiguation)''
Espérance is one of the two French words that can be translated into "hope", the other being "espoir". Whereas the latter is closer to the idea of "dream" or "fantasy" and corresponds to most of the common ...
, who defeated
Jordanian side
Al-Faisaly 3–2 after
extra time
Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...
in the final to secure a joint-record third title.
Allocation of entries
The following team entries allocation was announced by the
Union of Arab Football Associations
The Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA; ar, الاتحاد العربي لكرة القدم; french: Union des associations de football arabe) is the governing body of football in the Arab League. Established in 1974, UAFA has 22 member as ...
on 20 June 2016.
Each association was given entry either to the qualifying play-off or to the group stage based on the
FIFA World Ranking
The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Brazil . The teams of the men's member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the ...
of the associations on 2 June 2016. Only teams who were champions or runners-up of either their nation's league or one of their nation's cup competitions were allowed to participate in the tournament.
;Notes
Teams
The following 20 teams from 18 associations entered the competition.
;Notes
Venues
The following three venues were chosen to host all matches from the group stage onwards.
Schedule
The schedule of the competition was as follows.
Qualifying play-off
The qualifying play-off was held between 14 September 2016 and 4 March 2017. The three winners of the play-off round advanced to the group stage to join the nine direct entrants.
Preliminary round 1
;Asia Zone
;Africa Zone
;Notes
Preliminary round 2
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!colspan=5, Asia Zone
, -
!colspan=5, Africa Zone
Play-off round
, -
!colspan=5, Asia Zone
, -
!colspan=5, Africa Zone
Group stage
From the group stage onwards, the tournament was held in Egypt in the cities of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
and
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
. Twelve teams participated in the group stage, divided into three groups. The draw for the groups took place on 5 May 2017 in Cairo. The top team of each group along with the best runner-up advanced to the semi-finals.
*Times listed are
UTC+2
UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. This time is used in:
As standard time (year-round)
''Principal cities: Cairo, Pretoria, Cape ...
.
Group A
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Group B
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Group C
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Ranking of second-placed teams
The highest ranked second-placed team from the groups advanced to the
knockout stage
A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...
; the rest were eliminated.
Knockout stage
Matches were determined by a random draw.
Semi-finals
Final
Top scorers
Statistics exclude qualifying rounds.
Prize money
UAFA announced that the winner will receive $2.5 million, while $600,000 will go to the runner-up and the losing semi-finalists will each get $200,000.
Media
The tournament gained international coverage for being the first football tournament to be broadcast live on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
, with all 21 matches from the group stage and knockout stage being shown for free on the competition's official Twitter account.
Broadcasting
Notes
References
External links
UAFA Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arab Club Championship, 20117
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
2016 in Asian football
2016 in African football
2017 in Asian football
2017 in African football