2023–24 AFC Cup
20th secondary club football tournament organized by the AFC / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2023–24 AFC Cup was the 19th and last edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). From the 2024–25 season, the AFC Cup was discontinued,[2] and the AFC Champions League Two and the AFC Challenge League were introduced as Asia's second- and third-tier club tournaments, respectively.[3]
Tournament details | |
---|---|
Dates | Qualifying: 8–23 August 2023 Competition proper: 18 September 2023 – 5 May 2024 |
Teams | Competition proper: 36 Total (maximum): 65 (from 37 associations) |
Final positions | |
Champions | Central Coast Mariners (1st title) |
Runners-up | Al Ahed |
Tournament statistics | |
Matches played | 118 |
Goals scored | 386 (3.27 per match) |
Attendance | 373,244 (3,163 per match) |
Top scorer(s) | Marco Túlio (8 goals) |
Best player(s) | Mikael Doka[1] |
← 2022 2024-25 (ACL Two) → |
This was the first and only AFC Cup season to have a two-year (autumn-to-spring) schedule, unlike the previous all-year-round (spring-to-autumn) schedule.[4]
Al-Seeb were the title holders, having won their first AFC Cup title in 2022. However, they were not able to defend their title, having failed to advance through their domestic top-division league.
Central Coast Mariners won the competition for the first time, defeating Al Ahed 1–0 in the final.[5][6] Central Coast Mariners' victory meant that Australia became the first nation to have had clubs winning both the AFC Champions League and AFC Cup, following Western Sydney Wanderers' victory in the 2014 AFC Champions League.