2013 AFC Champions League
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 9 February – 9 November 2013 |
| Teams | 35 (from 10 associations) |
| Final positions | |
| Champions |
 Guangzhou Evergrande (1st title)
|
| Runners-up |
 FC Seoul
|
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 129 |
| Goals scored | 349 (2.71 per match) |
| Attendance | 2,021,025 (15,667 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |
 Muriqui(13 goals) |
| Best player |
Muriqui
|
The 2013 AFC Champions League was the 32nd edition of the top-level Asian club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 11th under the current AFC Champions League title. The defending champions, Ulsan Hyundai, failed to qualify for the tournament. As in previous years, Nike provided the official ball for all matches with a new Nike Maxim model used throughout the season.
In the final, Chinese team Guangzhou Evergrande defeated South Korean team FC Seoul on away goals to win their first title, becoming the first Chinese team to win the AFC Champions League (and the second Chinese team to be crowned Asian club champions after Liaoning FC), and qualified for the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup.
The AFC laid out the procedure for deciding the participating associations and the allocation of slots, with inspection of the associations interested in participating in the AFC Champions League to be done in 2012, and the final decision to be made by the AFC in November 2012.
The following criteria for participation in the AFC Champions League were proposed by the AFC in July 2012:
On 29 November 2012, the AFC Executive Committee approved the slots for the 2013 edition of the AFC Champions League. However, this final allocation of slots did not fully follow the proposal above.
The following teams entered the competition.
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.
The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws held at AFC headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).
The following changes in the format of the competition were made compared with the previous year:
The draw for the qualifying play-off was held on 6 December 2012. Each tie was played as a single match, with extra time and penalty shoot-out used to decide the winner if necessary. The winners of each tie advanced to the group stage to join the 29 automatic qualifiers.
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