SINGAPORE – Football fans among South-east Asia’s 600-million population can look forward to more matches involving the region’s top club teams from the 2024-25 season.

The Asean Football Federation (AFF) on April 4 announced the launch of the multi-million dollar Asean Club Championship, the Shopee Cup, at the Raffles Singapore hotel.

The rebranded event will feature the league champions and some countries’ cup winners.

Ten teams – two each from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and one each from the Philippines and Singapore – will qualify directly for the tournament proper.

Four others – the league champions of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – will compete for the remaining two group-stage spots, starting from July 17.

The 12 teams will then be drawn into two groups, where they will play home-and-away matches in a single round-robin format, with the top two from each group progressing to the two-legged semi-finals. The final will also be a two-legged affair, with the champions crowned on May 21, 2025.

Scheduling details will be provided at the tournament draw in early May. Australia and Timor Leste are not participating in the upcoming season.

Seamus O’Brien, president of AFF’s commercial partner Sportfive, said that not only will the champions receive more than US$500,000 (S$674,000) in prize money, each team in the main tournament will also get a six-figure sum.

He added that the Shopee Cup will not clash with Asian Football Confederation club competitions.

O’Brien said: “With the rise of Asean to the world’s fifth largest economy in recent decades, combined with the undying passion of Asean football fans, now all bound together in our contemporary digital landscape, it makes this a truly significant occasion for the sport.”

The Republic will be represented by Singapore Cup winners Lion City Sailors.

Singapore Premier League champions Albirex Niigata, who won the 2023 title as a Japanese side, are ineligible as the tournament is only for home-grown clubs. It is understood that Malaysia’s treble winners Johor Darul Takzim declined to participate.

AFF president Khiev Sameth is confident that the Shopee Cup will take Asean football to a world-class standard, adding that it “will be pivotal in creating an exciting future”.

He also hopes that it will become a pathway to the 32-team Fifa Club World Cup.

Sailors and national skipper Hariss Harun looks forward to seeing how the new competition can raise overall standards.

He said: “Hopefully, iron sharpens iron and Asean football can continue to improve by playing more high-quality opponents in intense environments.

“There will also be prestige and honour in becoming the region’s top club, which would be further enhanced if the champions eventually get admitted into the Fifa Club World Cup.”

In 2019, The Straits Times had reported on AFF’s intention to feature 12 regional domestic champions or cup winners in a competition. However, the Covid-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works.

In December 2023, ST reported that the plan was being revived.

Former national footballer R. Sasikumar, founder of international sports marketing agency Red Card Global, feels that while a high-level competition will benefit its participants, he is unsure of interest levels in a regional club competition.

Drawing from his involvement in the Mekong Club Championship, which featured teams from countries alongside the Mekong River from 2014 to 2017, he said: “From my point of view, Asean football fans are more interested in domestic club and national team rivalries.

“Maybe the Indonesians are the exceptions with their level of support regardless of competition, but I’m not so sure if there will be as much interest from the other Asean nations in a saturated space.

“With sponsors and 14 teams signing up, it indicates healthy interest from that end, but the fans may turn up in full force only in the knockout rounds when the bigger clubs clash.”

The first iteration of the Asean Club Championship was in 2003, with Indian invitees East Bengal winning the 11-team tournament.

Two years later, Singapore’s Tampines Rovers beat Malaysia’s Pahang 4-2 in the final to win the second edition, which featured champions from eight South-east Asian leagues.