Its a knockaout!

A better Asian Champions League would be to run it on a knock out basis and include more nations.

The main issue is that so few countries are allowed to compete, some countries receiving four berths while many others receive none at all, the other issue with the current set up is that it has a group stage which is both a financial strain on clubs ( they pay for hosting the visiting teams) and the AFC (they pay $70K for each game--- $40 as a win bonus and $30K for travelling expenses) as well as paying for the officials.

So for the AFC they pay $70K per game there is 12 games in a group so that’s $840K and you still have from 4 teams two teams remaining so there is a playoff round to get to one team --that adds a further expense its $50K for the AFC<> so that’s $890K x 8 groups that comes in at a staggering $7.2M

If it was straight knockout you could from 4 teams to 1 team in 3 games as opposed to the current expense arrangement consisting of 13 games.

With less games the dollars can be spread across the games quite substantially.

In the East and West you could seed 10 teams ( East – JP3, SK2, AUST2, CH2) (West QT3, IR2, UZ2, SA2, UAE1), have a preliminary home and away playoff of 12 teams in both the East and West to obtain the other 6 to obtain the 16 teams.

The preliminary round would include the champion nations of many countries that currently can’t compete – ie in the East -Singapore, Malyasia, North Korea, India, Veitnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the West --Kuwait, Oman Syria, Lebanon, Jordan etc – This would make it a true Asian Champions League

Thus you have 16 teams to play off in the East and West.

If you do the Maths based on existing AFC subsides and prizemoney ($10M) you could easily pay

$60k travelling subsidy for the away teams involved in the playoffs

A fee of $180k per team per round

Continue to pay the $1.5M for the winner and $750K for the RU

A fee of $300K for the losing semifinalist

A fee of $100K for the losing QF

This would enhance the Cup through Asia as no one will lose money !!!

Does anyone have their view on the current set up … ? BOTN Facebook Page

By Robert Szomolnoki Newcastle, 14 December, 2011

(Linked from FFA web site)