Vietnamese teams compete in Asian tournaments, why don't the audiences get hungry for TV signals?

K+ Television has reached an agreement with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) on the ownership of broadcasting rights for tournaments within the Asian framework in the period 2025-2029. The agreement with AFC includes 25 tournaments, notably the third qualifying round of the 2026 World Cup with the 18 best teams in the continent, the 2027 Asian Cup, the 2026 Women's Asian Cup, the 2026 and 2028 AFC U-23 finals, as well as two top club-level tournaments, the AFC Champions League and the AFC Cup.

AFC tournaments are attracting more and more Vietnamese audiences, where the competitions of domestic clubs have created strong appeal, and especially the recent performance of the Vietnam national team - the only representative of Southeast Asia participating in the third qualifying round of the 2022 World Cup.

With this agreement, K+ aims to become the preferred television brand to follow the national team and Vietnamese clubs, in the context of increasing interest in domestic football.

Vietnam national team matches in the 2025 - 2029 period will be broadcast live on television.

Asian football is undergoing a drastic change in terms of competition organization at the club and national team levels. From the 2024-2025 season onwards, the AFC will apply groundbreaking changes in the organization of club tournaments. Accordingly, the playground of Asian clubs will be restructured into 3 levels. Level 1 corresponds to the highest tournament currently, the AFC Champions League, level 2 corresponds to the AFC Cup and level 3 is the tournament for the group of clubs that are not qualified to participate in the 2 tournaments above.

The AFC Champions League will feature 24 teams in the group stage, comprising 12 from the east and 12 from the west. Teams from each zone will play 8 matches (4 home and 4 away), with 16 teams qualifying for the knockout round on a home-away basis. The 8 winners of the round of 16 will advance to the finals, which will be held at a centralised venue. The finals will consist of quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals, and will be played in a single-match knockout format.

The level 2 tournament (AFC Cup) includes 32 teams participating in the group stage and also applies the same competition format as the level 1 tournament.

The Level 3 tournament is the latest tournament to be introduced into the Asian club competition system from the 2024-2025 season. This tournament will have 20 teams participating in the group stage and divided into 5 groups, of which 3 groups are from West Asia and 2 groups are from East Asia. Teams will compete in a round robin in each group to select 8 teams to go on to the quarter-finals, then the semi-finals and the final. The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played on a home-away format while the final will be a single match.

For the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, the AFC Competition Committee has also planned to organize 4 stages of the Asian qualifying round to determine 8.5 places to participate in the final round. Round 1 includes teams ranked from 26 to 47 on the FIFA rankings in Asia. 22 teams are drawn into 11 pairs, playing a knockout match to select 11 teams to continue to round 2.

Round 2 has a total of 36 teams, including 25 teams ranked from 1 to 25 on the FIFA Asia rankings and 11 teams that passed the first qualifying round. The 36 teams will be divided equally into 9 groups, playing home and away in a round-robin format. The top two teams in each group (18 teams in total) will advance to round 3.

The 18 teams participating in the third round will be divided into three groups of six teams each, playing home and away matches. The top six teams in each group will qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup finals. The third and fourth-placed teams in each group will advance to the fourth qualifying round, also known as the Asian play-off round. These six teams will be divided into two groups of three teams each. The two group winners will qualify directly for the 2026 World Cup, while the two second-placed teams will compete in a regional play-off to compete for a ticket to the intercontinental play-off round.

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