2023–24 AFC Cup
20th secondary club football tournament organized by the AFC
The 2023–24 AFC Cup was the 20th edition of the AFC Cup, Asia's secondary club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the final edition under the AFC Cup title, as the competition was revamped under the name AFC Champions League Two starting in 2024–25. This was the first AFC Cup season to have a two-year (autumn-to-spring) schedule, unlike the previous all-year-round (spring-to-autumn) schedule.
As the title holders, Al-Seeb qualified for the 2023–24 AFC Champions League playoff stage. So they were unable to defend their title.
Central Coast Mariners won the competition for the first time, defeating Al Ahed 1–0 in the final. 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.
Association team allocation
The 47 AFC member associations are ranked based on their club's performance over the last four years in AFC competitions (their national team's FIFA World Rankings are no longer considered). The slots are allocated by the following criteria according to the Entry Manual:
The associations are split into five zones (Article 5.1):
West Asia Zone consists of the 12 associations from the West Asian Football Federation (WAFF).
South Asia Zone consists of the 7 associations from the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF).
Central Asia Zone consists of the 6 associations from Central Asian Football Association (CAFA).
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q110038173. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2023, 2024 and 2014.
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