King Abdullah Sports City Stadium
Featured image credit: saudipics/CC BY-SA 4.0/Edited for size
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has announced that King Abdullah Sports City and Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium in Jeddah will play host to the finale of its first edition of the revamped Champions League Elite.
The formation of the Champions League Elite was confirmed in August 2022, as part of the AFC’s wider overhaul of the club game on the continent, both for men and women. It has entered operation this season with the Finals set to see Asia’s top eight clubs battle for supremacy in a centralised format in single-leg ties from April 25 to May 3.
In December 2023, Saudi Arabia added another major football event to its portfolio, with the news that it had seen off competition from Iraq to stage the Champions League Elite Finals, potentially through to the 2028-29 season.
The AFC confirmed the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) as the host association for the Champions League Elite – Final Stage for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. It added that “in accordance with the interest submitted”, the SAFF was also provisionally awarded the hosting rights for the next three seasons, from 2026-27 to 2028-29.
King Abdullah Sports City and Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium, which were last month confirmed as venues for the Kingdom’s hosting of the AFC’s 2027 Asian Cup, will now be the focal point of the new look finale to the Confederation’s elite club tournament.
Both stadiums are poised to host two quarter-final ties and one semi-final encounter each. The final is set to be held at the King Abdullah Sports City, which this month landed a naming rights deal with Saudi Arabia-based bank Alinma. The eventual winners will claim the biggest-ever prize purse in Asian club football history of $12m (£9.49m/€11.47m).
As part of the most strategic and game-changing reforms ever to be introduced, the financial reward is three times more than the equivalent of the 2023-24 season. Similarly, the losing finalist will also receive a threefold increase of $6m.
King Abdullah Sports City is set to play a key role in Saudi Arabia’s staging of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, but Prince Abdullah Al Faisal Stadium hasn’t been included amongst the 15 proposed stadiums.
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