2025–26 AFC Champions League Elite


The 2025–26 AFC Champions League Elite is the 44th edition of Asia's premier club football tournament, organized by the Asian Football Confederation, and the second under the AFC Champions League Elite title.
The quarter-finals onwards will be played as single-match knockout ties in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia from 16 to 25 April. The tournament winner will qualify for the 2026 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and 2029 FIFA Club World Cup. Additionally, the winner will enter the league stage of the 2026–27 AFC Champions League Elite, if they have not already qualified through their domestic performance.
Al-Ahli are the defending champions.

Association team allocation

The associations are allocated slots according to their club competitions ranking which was published after the 2023–24 competitions were completed. Slots were subject to later re-balancing based on the 2024–25 competition results.

Teams

In the following table, the number of appearances and last appearance count since the 2002–03 season, when the competition was rebranded as the AFC Champions League.
;Notes.

Schedule

The schedule of the competition is as follows.
;Notes

Qualifying play-offs

The two winners of the play-off round advanced to the league stage to join the 22 direct entrants. The losers of the qualifying play-offs entered the group stage of the 2025–26 AFC Champions League Two.

League stage

The league phase draw took place on 15 August 2025, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Top scorers

; Note