The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said on Sunday that a women’s Asian Champions League will start next year, but they didn’t say anything about prize money.
The game will start with preliminary rounds in August 2024, and a group stage with 12 teams will begin in October, the AFC said after a meeting of its women’s football committee in Sydney a few hours before the World Cup final.
The quarter-finals will be in March 2025, and the final is scheduled for May of that year. However, the AFC said that the times were “tentative” and that the schedule could be changed “as needed.”
Twelve teams will play in three groups of four for the first four tournaments.
A statement said that matches will be played in a “centralized single round robin format in each group,” with the top two teams and the two best third-placed teams moving on to the quarterfinals.
From the 2024/25 to the 2027/28 seasons, each member association will be given one entry. The straight spots for the group rounds will be based on their FIFA ranks.
The AFC Women’s Champions League prize money was not made public. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said last week that the men’s Champions League prize money will triple to $12 million in 2024/25.
In a different decision, it was decided to move the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to odd years that are not the same as the FIFA World Cup.
It means that the next Women’s Asian Cup will be held in 2029 instead of 2030, after the next one in 2026.