APL

Kabul, November 23, 2017; The Afghan Premier League (APL) and Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF) regret to announce that the 2017 APL champions, Shaheen Asmayee, will not be able to attend the 2018 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup due to disqualification by AFC. Although Afghanistan Football Federation and APL were fully prepared for Shaheen Asmayee’s participation in the AFC Cup 2018, major changes in AFC Cup qualification criteria endorsed recently by AFC remained the main factor of disqualification. One of the new key criteria set by AFC asks all the participating clubs to be franchised; however, economic challenges in Afghanistan and time constraints made it impossible to achieve these requirements.  

As Shaheen Asmayee created history when it became the first Afghan football club to participate in an AFC competition in 2017, the APL in close cooperation with the AFF will stay committed to fulfill all the criteria set by AFC to ensure qualification and participation of the next APL champion team in the AFC Cup 2019.