Tournament details | |
---|---|
Dates | 24 January – 25 November 2017 |
Teams | 47 (from 19 associations) |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 63 |
Goals scored | 185 (2.94 per match) |
Attendance | 734,794 (11,663 per match) |
Top scorer(s) |
Youssef El-Arabi Alan Carvalho Hulk Rodrigo Tabata Mehdi Taremi (3 goals each) |
The 2017 AFC Champions League is the 36th edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 15th under the current AFC Champions League title.
The winners of the 2017 AFC Champions League will qualify as the AFC representative at the 2017 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates. If a team from the United Arab Emirates wins the AFC Champions League, the runners-up will also qualify (in place of the winners of the 2016–17 UAE Pro-League).
Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors are the defending champions, but on 18 January 2017, they were excluded from the 2017 AFC Champions League due to bribery scandal in the domestic K League. Jeonbuk appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but their request for provisional measures was rejected on 3 February.
The AFC Competitions Committee proposed a revamp of the AFC club competitions on 25 January 2014, which was ratified by the AFC Executive Committee on 16 April 2014. The 46 AFC member associations (excluding the associate member Northern Mariana Islands) are ranked based on their national team's and clubs' performance over the last four years in AFC competitions, with the allocation of slots for the 2017 and 2018 editions of the AFC club competitions determined by the 2016 AFC rankings:
The final association ranking used to determine the slot allocation was published on 30 November 2016. The slot allocation was announced on 7 December 2016, with India and Maldives returning to the West Region. The final slot allocation, after unused slots were redistributed, was announced on 12 December 2016.
The following 47 teams from 19 associations 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.