2018 AFC Champions League
| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 16 January – 10 November 2018 |
| Teams | Maximum of 53 (from Maximum of 24 associations) |
The 2018 AFC Champions League will be the 37th edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 16th under the current AFC Champions League title.
The winners of the 2018 AFC Champions League will qualify as the AFC representative at the 2018 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 2017–18 UAE Pro-League).
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.
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 is as follows.
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