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Pro League CEO Colin Smith attends AFC meeting

Colin Smith, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Pro League Committee, travelled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to attend the Asian Football Confederation’s 6th joint meeting of the AFC Ad Hoc Committee for Professional Football on Sunday 10th March. The meeting was a collaborative session between the AFC Ad Hoc Committee for Professional Leagues and the AFC Ad Hoc Committee for Professional Clubs. The committee meeting made several decisions for a three-year period starting 2014, aiming for stability and consistency in the AFC Champions League competition and its format.

The committee decided not to give an automatic slot in the group stage of the AFC Champions League to the defending champions and approved to maintain the home-and-away format of ACL Round of 16 for the next three years. It was also decided to propose a one-off final of the AFC Champions League from 2014-2016, and the ticketing policy for AFC Champions League final for the next three years where the host club will get 70% of the revenue while 20% will be given to the visiting club. The remaining 10% will be provided for AFC’s Social Responsibility Legacy Programme. The synchronisation of ACL and AFC Club Licensing criteria was also approved by the committee - apart from finalising the ACL points re-distribution for the period of 2014-2016 - and committee members also discussed points calculation for technical standard in AFC Cup.

All decisions agreed upon in the committee meeting are currently provisional as they must be approved by the AFC Competitions Committee and the AFC Executive Committee in order to be implemented.