The 2025–26 AFC Challenge League will be the 12th edition of the Asia's third-tier continental 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, organized 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 ( ...

(AFC), and the second under the

AFC Challenge League The AFC Challenge League (previously known as the AFC President's Cup, abbreviated as ACGL) is an annual third-tier continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation. The competition is played among clubs from n ...

title. Arkadag are the reigning champions, but will not be able to defend their title as the winner of the Challenge League automatically qualifies for the Champions League Two Group stage The winner will be given a direct slot for the 2026–27 AFC Champions League Two group stage, if they haven't already qualified through their domestic performance.

Association team allocation

The associations are allocated slots according to their club competitions ranking which was published after the 2023–24 competitions were completed. ;Notes

Teams

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Schedule

The schedule of the competition is as follows.

Preliminary stage

The bracket of the preliminary stage was determined based on each team's association ranking and their seeding within their association, with the team from the higher-ranked association hosting the match. The nine winners of the preliminary stage (five from West Region and four from East Region) advanced to the group stage and joined the 11 direct entrants.

West Region

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East Region

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Group stage

The group stage draw is scheduled to take place on 28 August 2025.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2025-26 AFC Challenge League 3 3 AFC Challenge League Scheduled association football competitions