Moataz Al-Shami (Dubai)
Preparations have begun for the launch of the Arab Football Clubs Championship, which was renamed in the “new edition” to the King Salman Club Cup, and it will be held between July and August next, with the participation of the largest clubs, the league champions, and the fans.
The championship prizes amount to 10 million dollars, including 6 million for the champion of the version that the Arab Federation, headed by Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, wants to be exceptional in everything.
The Arab Federation addressed the Football Association to nominate the representative of the Emirates, and the comparison is still between Al Ain and Al Wahda to participate in the tournament, which will be determined in the coming weeks.
And according to what was announced by the Arab Federation, the tournament will be held with the participation of 37 teams, most of which enter the qualifying stage, to complete the round of 16, and according to the sources of the “Al-Ittihad” newspaper, 10 clubs qualify directly for the round of 16, which takes place between late June and until the first week of August, while the rest play The teams are qualifiers from home and away matches, from which 6 clubs qualify to complete the round of 16 contract.
According to the sources, he qualifies directly for the role of the 16 big clubs, led by Al-Hilal, Al-Nasr and Al-Ittihad, representatives of the host country, Zamalek and Al-Ahly (Egypt), Esperance (Tunisia), and Al-Sadd (Qatar). In addition to Raja, the title holder of the previous version.
According to the official website of the Arab Federation, the tournament is held in a preliminary qualifier system, followed by the finals hosted by Saudi Arabia in Abha, Al-Baha and Taif.
The tournament will be held in the “assembly” system, starting from the round of 16, which will be held in the group system with 3 groups, each of which includes 4 teams, and the first and second of them, in addition to the two best third-ranked teams, will qualify for the quarter-finals, provided that the quarter-finals and semi-finals will be held by knockout. From one game to the final.
It is expected that 27 teams from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, Tunisia, Algeria, Djibouti, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Comoros, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Yemen will participate in the qualifiers.
Raja Allah Al-Salami, Secretary-General of the Arab Federation, confirmed that the tournament bears a name dear to all Arab athletes, and is among the Arab Federation competitions for the 2023 season, indicating that the goal is for the tournament to contribute to the development and development of football in the Arab world, and to support Arab clubs, especially The timing will be positive and appropriate for everyone, and before the launch of local patrols in most countries of the region.
He explained that the mechanism for participating in the tournament was circulated to all member federations to name their representatives, and in the coming weeks, the dates of the qualifiers and finals will be announced, in coordination with the member federations, and the Saudi Federation will host the tournament finals.
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