The 2023–24 AFC Champions League was the 42nd edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 21st and final under the AFC Champions League title, as the competition would be rebranded as the AFC Champions League Elite starting in 2024–25.
This season was the first to have an inter-year schedule from September (autumn-to-spring), instead of an intra-year schedule (spring-to-autumn), since the 2002–03 season.[2] This edition saw an increase in numbers of preliminary players, with 35 players able to be registered; teams were able to field six foreign players in games, where one of these players had to still be from another Asian nation.
The tournament winner qualified for the 2024 FIFA Intercontinental Cup and 2025 FIFA Club World Cup in the United States. Additionally, the winner entered the League stage of the brand-new 2024–25 AFC Champions League Elite if they had not already qualified through their domestic performance.[3]
Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan were the defending champions, but were eliminated in the group stage.
The 47 AFC member associations were ranked based on their clubs' performance over the last four years in AFC competitions (their national team's FIFA World Rankings no longer considered).[4] The slots were allocated by the following criteria according to the Entry Manual:[5]
For the 2023–24 AFC Champions League, the associations were allocated slots according to the November 2021 AFC club competitions ranking,[8][9][10] which took into account their performance in the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup during the period between 2018 and 2021.[2020]
In the following table, the number of appearances and last appearance count only those since the 2002–03 season (including qualifying rounds), when the competition was rebranded as the AFC Champions League.
The schedule of the competition was as follows.[14]
A total of 10 teams played in the preliminary round.
A total of 16 teams played in the play-off round: 11 teams which entered in this round, and 5 winners of the preliminary round.
The draw for the group stage was held on 24 August 2023 at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[15] The 40 teams were drawn into ten groups of four: five groups each in the West Region (Groups A–E) and the East Region (Groups F–J). For each region, teams were seeded into four pots and drawn into the relevant positions within each group, based on their association ranking and their seeding within their association, in consideration of the technical balance between groups. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group.
The first legs were played on 13–15 February, and the second legs were played on 20–22 February 2024.
The first legs were played on 4–6 March 2024, and the second legs were played on 11–13 March 2024.
The first legs were played on 17 April, and the second legs were played on 23 and 24 April 2024.
The East Region team hosted the first leg as pre-determined on a rotation basis.