CONCACAF Launches Champions League

New Tournament Will Send One Regional Team To Club World Cup

January 28, 2008

NEW YORK -- CONCACAF officially launched its new continental club championship, the Champions League, which replaces the Champions' Cup and will begin this August with four teams from the United States to be among the 24 clubs.

CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) announced the formation of the new league Monday. The Champions League will replace the Champions’ Cup -- which will cease to exist after the 2008 edition -- as the region's qualifying tournament for the FIFA Club World Cup.

The Champions League will see a Confederation record number of 24 teams from all sectors of the CONCACAF region participating, including four teams from Mexico and USA; three Caribbean sides; two clubs each from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama; and one representative coming from Canada, Belize, and Nicaragua.

Eight clubs (two Mexican, two USA, one each from Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador) will be seeded and progress directly to the first round of the CONCACAF Champions League, while the Caribbean slots have been increased to three teams for this event.

The remaining 16 teams will be paired in eight home-and-away preliminary match-ups taking place from August 26-28 and Sept. 2-4.

The preliminary round winners will join the other eight seeded teams in the group stage that consists of four groups of four. All the teams in each group will play each other in a round-robin system during six match dates (three home games, three away games) from Sept. 16 - Oct. 30.

The top two clubs from each group will advance to the knock out phase playing home-and-away elimination. The quarterfinals commence in February 2009; semifinals begin in March; and the Finals will take place in late April, with the winner serving as CONCACAF’s representative to the 2009 edition of the FIFA Club World Cup.

The 2008-09 CONCACAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE calendar of events:

2008
End July: All qualification completed, draw for preliminary round
26-28 August: Preliminary Round, First-legs
2-4 September: Preliminary Round, Second-legs
Early September: Group Stage Schedule Announced
16-18 September: Group Stage – Match Day 1
23-25 September: Group Stage – Match Day 2
30 September – 2 October: Group Stage – Match Day 3
7-9 October: Group Stage – Match Day 4
21-23 October: Group Stage – Match Day 5
28-30 October: Group Stage – Match Day 6

2009
24-26 February: Quarterfinals, First-legs
3-5 March: Quarterfinals, Second-legs
17-19 March: Semifinals, First-legs
7-9 April: Semifinals, Second-legs
21-23 April: Final, First-leg
28-30 April: Final, Second-leg
December: FIFA Club World Cup

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