AN Asian women’s Champions League will be launched next year, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said today without revealing details of prize money.

Preliminary rounds will kick off the competition next August with a 12-team group stage beginning in October, the AFC announced after a meeting of its women’s football committee in Sydney just hours before the World Cup final.

Quarter-finals will be in March 2025 with a final planned for May that year – though the AFC said the dates are “tentative” and the calendar will be adjusted “where necessary”.

For the first four editions, 12 sides will compete in three groups of four.

Matches will be played in a “centralised single round robin format in each group, with the top two and the two best third-placed sides advancing to the quarter finals”, the AFC said in a statement.

Each participating group will be allowed one entry from the 2024/25 to 2027/28 seasons, with the direct slots for group stages determined by their Fifa rankings.

The amount of prize money for the AFC women’s champions league was not revealed. The AFC announced last week the prize money for the men’s Champions League will triple to US$12 million (RM55.8 million) in 2024/25.

In a separate decision, it was agreed to shift the AFC Women’s Asian Cup to non-Fifa World Cup odd years.

It means after the next Women’s Asian Cup in 2026, the subsequent edition will be in 2029 instead of 2030. – AFP, August 20, 2023.