2021 AFC Champions League
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The 2021 AFC Champions League was the 40th edition of Asia's premier club
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tournament organized by the
Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly ...
(AFC), and the 19th under the current
AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition ...
title. Al-Hilal won their fourth title by defeating
Pohang Steelers The Pohang Steelers (Hangul: 포항 스틸러스) are a South Korean professional football club based in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province that compete in the K League 1, the top flight of South Korean football. The Steelers were founded on 1 ...
2–0 in the
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, becoming the most successful team in the history of the competition. As winners, they automatically qualified for the
2022 AFC Champions League The 2022 AFC Champions League is the 41st edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 20th under the current AFC Champions League title. This season is officially the last seaso ...
(although they had already qualified through their domestic performance). They also earned the right to play in the
2021 FIFA Club World Cup The 2021 FIFA Club World Cup (officially known as the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2021 presented by Alibaba Cloud for sponsorship reasons) was the 18th edition of the FIFA Club World Cup, a FIFA-organised international club football tournament betwe ...
in the United Arab Emirates. The tournament was the first to involve 40 teams during the group stage, with an increase from the previous 32 teams.
Ulsan Hyundai Ulsan Hyundai FC ( ko, 울산 현대 축구단) is a South Korean professional football club based in Ulsan that competes in the K League 1, the top tier of South Korean football. Founded in 1983 as Hyundai Horang-i, they joined the K League in ...
of South Korea were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the semi-finals by fellow South Korean club Pohang Steelers.


Association team allocation

The 46
AFC AFC may stand for: Organizations * Action for Children, a UK children's charity * AFC Enterprises, the franchisor of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits * Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution * A ...
member associations (excluding the
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, which became a full member in December 2020 and are not eligible for this season) are ranked based on their clubs' performance over the last four years in AFC competitions (their national team's
FIFA World Rankings 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 ...
no longer considered). The slots are allocated by the following criteria according to the Entry Manual: *The associations are split into two regions (Article 3.1): **West Region consists of the 25 associations from the
West Asian Football Federation The West Asian Football Federation (WAFF; ar, اتحاد غرب آسيا لكرة القدم, Ittiḥād Gharb Āsiyā li-Kurat al-Qadam), founded in 2001, is an association of the football playing nations in Western Asia. Its founding members a ...
(WAFF), the
South Asian Football Federation South Asian Football Federation (SAFF), founded in 1997, is an association of the football playing nations in South Asia and is part of the larger Asian Football Confederation. The members of the association are Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Mald ...
(SAFF), and the
Central Asian Football Association The Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) is an association of the football playing nations in Central Asia. In June 2014, the association was in principle approved by the Asian Football Confederation and approved at the Extraordinary Congr ...
(CAFA). **East Region consists of the 21 associations from the
ASEAN Football Federation The ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) is an organisation within the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and is an international governing body of association football in Southeast Asia. It consists of the federations of Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, ...
(AFF) and the
East Asian Football Federation The East Asian Football Federation (EAFF), founded on 28 May 2002, is an international governing body of association football in East Asia. History Competitions Current title holders Presidents Member associations EAFF has 10 member a ...
(EAFF). **The AFC may reallocate one or more associations to another region if necessary for sporting reasons. *The top 12 associations in each region are eligible to enter the AFC Champions League. *In each region, there are five groups in the group stage, including 16 direct slots, with the 4 remaining slots filled through qualifying play-offs (Article 3.2). The slots in each region are distributed as follows: **The associations ranked 1st and 2nd are each allocated three direct slots and one play-off slot. **The associations ranked 3rd and 4th are each allocated two direct slots and two play-off slots. **The associations ranked 5th are each allocated one direct slot and two play-off slots. **The associations ranked 6th are each allocated one direct slot and one play-off slot. **The associations ranked 7th to 10th are each allocated one direct slot. **The associations ranked 11th to 12th are each allocated one play-off slot. *The AFC Champions League title holders and AFC Cup title holders are each allocated one play-off slot should they not qualify for the tournament through domestic performance (Article 3.6). However, there are no AFC Cup title holders for this season as the
2020 AFC Cup The 2020 AFC Cup was the 17th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The competition was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic after group stage matches on 11 March ...
was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. The following rules are applied: **If the AFC Champions League title holders or AFC Cup title holders are from associations ranked 1st to 6th, their association is allocated the same number of play-off slots, and they replace the lowest-seeded team from their association. Otherwise, their association is allocated one additional play-off slot, and they do not replace any team from their association (Articles 3.8, 3.9 and 3.10). **If both the AFC Champions League title holders and AFC Cup title holders are from the same association which is allocated only one play-off slot, their association is allocated one additional play-off slot, and only the lowest-seeded team from their association is replaced as a result (Article 3.11). **The AFC Champions League title holders and AFC Cup title holders are the lowest-seeded teams in the qualifying play-offs if they do not replace any team from their association (Article 3.12). *If any association ranked 1st to 6th do not fulfill any one of the AFC Champions League criteria, they have all their direct slots converted into play-off slots. The direct slots given up are redistributed to the highest eligible association by the following criteria (Articles 3.13 and 3.14): **For each association, the maximum number of total slots is four and the maximum number of direct slots is three (Articles 3.4 and 3.5). **If any association ranked 3rd to 6th is allocated one additional direct slot, one play-off slot is annulled and not redistributed. **If any association ranked 5th to 6th is allocated two additional direct slots, one play-off slot is annulled and not redistributed. *If any association ranked 7th to 10th do not fulfill any one of the AFC Champions League criteria, they have their direct slot converted into play-off slot. The direct slot given up is redistributed to the next association ranked 11th or 12th, whose play-off slot is annulled and not redistributed, or if neither are eligible, the highest eligible association by the same criteria as mentioned above (Articles 3.16 and 3.17). *If any association with only play-off slot(s), including any association ranked 11th to 12th or those mentioned above, do not fulfill the minimum AFC Champions League criteria, the play-off slot(s) are annulled and not redistributed (Articles 3.19 and 3.20). *For each association, the maximum number of total slots is one-third of the total number of eligible teams (excluding foreign teams) in the top division (Article 3.4). If this rule is applied, any direct slots given up are redistributed by the same criteria as mentioned above, and play-off slots are annulled and not redistributed (Article 9.10). *All participating teams must be granted an AFC Champions League license, and apart from cup winners, finish in the top half of their top division (Articles 7.1 and 9.5). If any association do not have enough teams which satisfy this criteria, any direct slots given up are redistributed by the same criteria as mentioned above, and play-off slots are annulled and not redistributed (Article 9.9). *If any team granted a license refuses to participate, their slot, either direct or play-off, is annulled and not redistributed (Article 9.11).


Association ranking

For the 2021 AFC Champions League, the associations are allocated slots according to their association ranking which was published on 29 November 2019, which takes into account their performance in the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup during the period between 2016 and 2019. ;Notes


Teams

''In the following table, the number of appearances and last appearance count only those since the 2002–03 season (including qualifying rounds), when the competition was rebranded as the AFC Champions League.'' ;Notes


Schedule

The schedule of the competition is as follows. On 25 January 2021, the AFC published the schedule of the competition. The group stage is played as centralized double round-robin tournament, and the round of 16 and quarter-finals are played as a single match. Notes: *W: West Region *E: East Region The original schedule of the competition, as planned before the pandemic, was as follows.


Qualifying play-offs


Preliminary round


Play-off round


Group stage


Group A


Group B


Group C


Group D


Group E


Group F


Group G


Group H


Group I


Group J


Ranking of second-placed teams


West Region


East Region


Knockout stage


Bracket


Round of 16


Quarter-finals


Semi-finals


Final


Top scorers


See also

*
2021 AFC Cup The 2021 AFC Cup was the 18th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The winners of the tournament automatically qualified for the 2022 AFC Champions League, enterin ...
*
2021 AFC Women's Club Championship The 2021 AFC Women's Club Championship (also known as the AFC Women’s Club Championship 2021 Pilot Tournament (West)) was the second edition of AFC's premier women's club football competition, held between 7 and 13 November. Four clubs from f ...


Notes


References


External links

*
AFC Champions League 2021
stats.the-AFC.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Afc Champions League 2021 1
2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...
Association football events postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic