Changes to the competition format of the AFF Cup 2018

At the meeting of the AFF (Southeast Asian Football Federation) held in Bali (Indonesia) at noon on September 22, the Competition Council agreed to change the competition format of the AFF Cup in 2018.

Vietnam national football team's training session in preparation for AFF Cup 2016. Vietnam football has just been ranked as the number 1 seed at AFF Cup 2018. Photo: SH

According to regulations, since 2018, football teams in the region will be divided into two groups, playing a round robin to calculate rankings, selecting the top two teams in each group to enter the semi-finals and finals.

In the group stage (5 teams/group), the teams will play two matches at home and two matches away. For example, Vietnam is in the same group with Myanmar, Cambodia, East Timor and Malaysia. According to this format, Vietnam will play two matches at home with Malaysia and Cambodia, and two matches away with Myanmar and East Timor. In the semi-finals and finals, the home-away format remains the same.

Based on the achievements of each team through the two AFF Cup tournaments 2014 and 2016, there are 9 teams that will enter the group stage (ranked in order of points selected by the Competition Council) including: 1- Thailand 22 points, 2 - Vietnam 18 points, 3 - Indonesia 17 points, 4 - Malaysia 17 points, 5 - Philippines 15 points, 6 - Myanmar 14 points, 7 - Singapore 11 points, 8 - Cambodia 7 points, 9 - Laos 7 points.

The two teams will play a play-off match to choose the winner to advance to the group stage, East Timor 4 points and Brunei 2 points. This play-off match is scheduled to take place in October 2018.

With the above points and rankings, Thailand and Vietnam will be placed in the number 1 seed group when the qualifying round draw takes place from November 8 to December 15, 2018. The draw and grouping will take place in May 2018.

According to TTO