Really disappointed to see that the Asian Champions League will be similar to its predecessors. I was expecting a lot better with all the hype that surrounded it. I know travel costs are a big problem, but playing group stages in one venue is silly. First of all the crowd will only come to see the home team anyway and the clubs that reach the group stage could careless about the number of matches they get to play as they are only concerned with winning the tournament. It is only the smaller nations like the Maldives, which will never make it to the group stages, who care about getting multiple matches so that their participation in the tournament will be worthwhile. Also a real shame that nations are only given two slots and one of them being the cup winners. Personally, I would have created a ranking system similar to UEFA club coefficient system and given the top three leagues in the East and West 4 slots each (top 3 in the league and cup winners). The 12 teams in each half of the draw would go directly into the first round. All the other leagues would send their participants (with a maximum of 3 for leagues ranked 4 – 8 and just 1 for leagues ranked 9 and above) to a qualifying tournament in a country in their region. Basically, one country in the East (likely Thailand or Singapore) and one in the West (likely UAE) would hold a football tournament with group stages for all these teams in which the four semi-finalists from the two regions would qualify for the Asian Champions League. The smaller nations I think would really like this because they would get to play many games and would only have to travel to one location. Also the trip would be sort of a vacation reward for doing well in their league. So then you would have 16 teams (12 from the top three leagues and 4 qualifiers) in each half of the draw and they would simply play in a knockout format with the winners of the East and West bracket meeting in a 2 leg final. This system would be in place until it is financially viable to hold a 1st round group stage with 4 groups of 4 in each of the two regions, where countries would play on a home and away basis with every team in its group. Sorry if I made this too confusing, but it’s a pretty simple and pragmatic idea. What say you all?
well I think it's really hard to travel. I mean even China alone is bigger than most parts of Europe. It can never be as easy as traveling within Europe. Blame that Asia just too huge. Maybe it should have been divided into smaller regional group stage, that way each team can play home and away just like European Championship. And then hopefully we have another group stage where now teams-far or not-travel to play other teams. Then go right to the Semi-final. Or get rid of that second group stage and just play quarter final from that point on. Anyway, maybe we should have "regional" group stage, although it sure would reduce much fun.
In the US (due to its huge size and distance), the NFL uses the "conference system". Initially- teams are divided into conferences e.g.- East and West. Teams which are in the same geographical locations (in the East- NY Giants, Washington Red Skins) play against one another the leading teams from each conference meet with an opposing conference for the final championship. In the US most team from the conferences are on par. Asia can do something similar- although the top 3 teams in Asia are in the East, the west (including Central Asia) has more quantity wise better teams and are more on par to each other - so grounds for unfairness in this format may arise. Japan, S. Korea and Australia will be mostly guaranteed qualification since most of their competitors from the East will be less challenging (Indonesia, China, Vietnam), while the west will be a battlefield (13 of the top 20 in Asia are located in the west), and thus if the West reaches the knock out stages- they are more likely to have injured, exhausted/fatigue and carded players which will be a plus for the Easterners.