Having claimed their maiden ACL Elite crown in May this year, Al Ahli Saudi FC will be determined to defend the trophy in the 23rd edition of Asia’s top-tier men’s club tournament. The Saudi Arabian outfit are one of five former champions in the hat for the draw, which will also feature three sides that are embarking on their maiden Continental campaigns: Korea Republic’s Gangwon FC, Japan’s FC Machida Zelvia and China PR’s Chengdu Rongcheng FC.

 

The cast, drawn from 12 Member Associations (MAs), will be placed into two pots within each region, as below:

Two grids will be filled during the draw: a Draw Grid and a Pairings Grid, as shown below:

For each region, every club will be drawn into their respective position in the Draw Grid – in the example depicted above, which applies to the West region, Pot 1 clubs occupy any of the top two rows (A1 to C2) and Pot 2 clubs the bottom two (A3 to C4), which ensures they play against eight different sides from the other columns (e.g. clubs in column A will be paired against clubs from columns B and C). The Pairings Grid ensures that each team plays four home and four away matches against an equal number of clubs from Pots 1 and 2. An identical process applies to clubs in the East region, which will be classified from D1 to D4, E1 to E4 and F1 to F4.

 

The country protection principle will be in force and a bespoke draw software will be utilised to prevent any deadlock situations from occurring.

 

The top eight finishers of each League progress to the Round of 16, scheduled for March 2-11, 2026, which will be followed by a centralised Finals that sees all matches from the Quarter-finals onwards being contested in Saudi Arabia between April 17 and 25, 2026.

 

Follow the latest news of the ACL Elite here and tune in to the League Stage draw ceremony on Friday, August 15, 2025 at 5pm (GMT+8) here!