April 12 – The AFC’s men’s Champions League kicks off this week. The women’s game in Asia could see the debut of a regional Champions League as early as 2023.
The Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) head of women’s soccer Bat Lili (pictured), has told the AFP that details for the new competition are being finalised.
The news comes as the AFC’s women’s football strategy group holds a second seminar session tomorrow (Tuesday 13 April) discussing the future of the women’s game in the region.
A Women’s Champions League would be a major step forward for the development of Asian women’s football as well as, over time, potentially create significant new commercial opportunity. Core to the decision making on the Champions League will be the club licensing criteria for entry to the league, and of course how teams qualify.
Currently the AFC holds a Women’s Club Championship, which debuted in 2019 with a successful pilot event four teams from Australia, China, Japan and South Korea.
The competition was not held in 2020 due to the pandemic but further editions are scheduled for this year and in 2022. The Champions League would debut the following year. This would be the year after the next edition of the expanded AFC Women’s Asian Cup (from to 12 to 18 teams), to be held in India in 2022
While Asian women’s teams have competed on a par with the top nations from other confederations at Olympics and World Cups, a gap has started to emerge as Europe has rapidly developed its club leagues. Bai said a pan-AFC Women’s Champions League would “definitely boost women’s football” in Asia.
“If we are organising a club competition, that means the participants need to meet the criteria for the club licensing, the leagues need to be well organised,” Bai said.
“That is definitely going to help the domestic leagues. It will give exposure to the non-national team players.”
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