Arab Club Champions Cup

Lore & Background

The Union of Arab Football Associations (UAFA) decided to create a competition for champions of Arab countries after the end of the 1979–80 season. Domestic champions from UAFA's member nations were invited to compete, but after several withdrawals, only three teams from Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan ended up participating. The competition kicked off on 19 June 1981 with Lebanese champions Nejmeh beating Jordanian champions Al-Ahli 2–1. Nejmeh's Jamal Al-Khatib was the scorer of the first Arab Club Champions Cup goal. Nejmeh and Al-Shorta competed in the inaugural final in February 1982, with Al-Shorta winning 4–2 on aggregate at Al-Shaab Stadium in Baghdad to be crowned the first champions of the Arab world. The tournament was not held the following year but returned in 1984 in a round-robin format, and Al-Ettifaq earned the first title for a Saudi Arabian club that year. With the number of participants increasing every year, UAFA introduced preliminary qualifying rounds that preceded the final round-robin tournament, before they changed the format of the final tournament in 1987 to one that consisted of a group stage followed by a knockout stage. UAFA also started to allow countries to have more than one participant in 1987, with two Saudi Arabian clubs (Al-Ittihad and Al-Hilal) and two Iraqi clubs (Al-Rasheed and Al-Jaish) competing. Al-Rasheed of Iraq dominated the competition during these years, becoming the first team to win three consecutive championships in 1985, 1986 and 1987, while Al-Ettifaq won their title back in 1988. From 1981 to 1988, no team from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) was able to win the tournament and all winners were from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). An African club became champions of the Arab world for the first time in 1989 as Wydad Casablanca of Morocco beat Saudi Arabia's Al-Hilal in the final. That same year, UAFA founded a new annual competition that would be held alongside the Arab Club Champions Cup; it was called the Arab Cup Winners' Cup and was a competition for the cup winners of Arab countries, with a similar format to that of the Champions Cup. In 1995, UAFA introduced the Arab Super Cup which was an annual round-robin competition between the winners and runners-up of both the Champions Cup and Cup Winners' Cup. From 1989 until 2001, there were six winners from CAF and five from the AFC. Four of t

In Their Own Story

The air inside the King Fahd International Stadium was thick with anticipation, a electric hum vibrating through the stands under the bright floodlights. It was the final of the Arab Club Champions Cup, and Al Nassr stood on the precipice of history against their fierce rivals, Al-Ittihad. As the ball struck the net in the dying moments, sending Turkish legend Hakan Şükür into a wild celebration, the roar of the Yellow Army drowned out everything else. In that instant, the trophy was not just metal and glass; it was the culmination of decades of passion, finally realized on the grandest Arab stage.

Reader's Guide

Since the 2018–19 season, the competition has been named Arab Club Champions Cup, while each edition of the tournament also has its own special name based on the host nation of the tournament or host of the final match. The 2019 final was hosted in the United Arab Emirates, therefore the 2018–19 edition was named the Zayed Champions Cup to mark 100 years since the birth of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founder of the United Arab Emirates. The 2020 final was hosted in Morocco, therefore the 2019–20 edition was named the Mohammed VI Champions Cup after Mohammed VI of Morocco. The 2023 edition of the tournament was hosted in Saudi Arabia from the group stage onwards, and was thus named King Salman Club Cup after Salman of Saudi Arabia. The logo of the Arab Club Champions Cup is a white circle with a grey outline, featuring navy, red, purple and green patterning with a navy diamond in the centre bearing the words Arab Champions in Arabic. The name of the competition in both English and Arabic features underneath the logo. The logo is adapted slightly for each edition of the tournament to reflect the name and host nation of that specific edition. As of 2023, the fixed amount of prize money paid to participating clubs is as follows: [prize money details not specified in source].

Did You Know?

• The first goal in Arab Club Champions Cup history was scored by Jamal Al-Khatib of Nejmeh.
• Al-Rasheed of Iraq was the first team to win three consecutive championships (1985, 1986, 1987).
• The tournament was not held in 1983 and had multiple hiatuses, including a four-year gap from 2009 to 2012.
• The 2023 edition was named King Salman Club Cup after the host nation's king.